Robert Pruitt the money is to prove you can take care of yourself while in the country. I mean its beyond stupid but that can be asked. The ticket home should be usually doing the job to enter. I often flies to thailand on my time off from work. I always have a ticket home that i show at immigration and it always did the job. Hope your situation goes well.
You can exit the country and re enter by land 2 times in a calender year. By air there is no limit its as the discretion of IO to let you in or question you regarding your purpose of visit in Thailand. My advice is to have a return ticket to your home country always with you when you enter by air. Just change the date of return home for that ticket and you will be fine.