Living on Half My Salary?

Seattle Simplicity asked they hypothetical question of whether or not she could live working half the time and making half as much. My current salary is $37K, so I would have to say "no" in my case.

I've lived on that kind of money before and budgeting is a lot less fun when you actually have to do it. I can probably live on less than most people I know and not be totally miserable, but the older I get and further I move up in my career, the more incredible it seems to me that anyone can survive on entry level salary.

Primarily, I'm accustomed to living intown, which has other offsetting benefits like no commute. There are other things I like to buy that are difficult to afford at $8 an hour wages-- especially food since I have never bothered to learn how to cook to a level I feel worth the effort.

I would however be totally amenable to working half time and earning slightly less than my current salary.... say $30K. My time is something I value more than money and having time to reflect, create, amuse myself and explore is far more valuable than what I do at work; though society understandably holds a reversed position.

The only dangerous proposition with having that much free time is that it begets bad spending habits. I've been in very unstructured situations where I worked very little and had days of down time. If I was bored, which was frequent because my friends worked, I'd go shopping or get my hair cut. I'd go out to the bars during the week (in addition to weekends) and party hard because it was never really a school night.