Life earnings originally spent (7)
I believe the answer is:
innings
'life' is the definition.
(he had a good innings)
'earnings originally spent' is the wordplay.
'earnings' becomes 'winnings'.
'originally spent' means to remove the first letter (spend/remove the original/first letter).
'winnings' with its initial letter removed is 'INNINGS'.
(Other definitions for innings that I've seen before include "(At cricket) a turn to bat" , "Time spent batting" , "Batsman's spell at wicket" , "cricketers must have" , "knock" .)