For a long time I was the "gifted" kid who didn't really feel like doing much in school beyond the minimum effort needed to get good enough grades to keep my parents off my case.

They never really tried to show me WHY the good grades were worth something. It was mostly just that's what I was supposed to do and if I didn't then I'd get yelled at, or get some sort of perk I took for granted temporarily removed until my parents got tired of it. There was never any, "oh by the way this upper middle class life you're leading that makes everything so comfortable to you, takes a whole lot of EFFORT to achieve."

Somewhere along the way I gained a little perspective about a few things:

1) Most people don't live the way my parents do.
2) It takes a lot of money to live the way my parents do.
3) Getting the kind of money my parents have takes a lot of ass kicking.
4) Kicking ass at school opens up lots more opportunities to kick ass in a way that would get me PAID.

It's not so much money in and of itself that drives me, moreso I want to have the ability to do whatever the hell I want whenever the hell I want, within reason of course, without having to think about "oh I wonder if I can afford this." I'll always be a cheap jew bastard just like my parents who don't really need to hunt for deals but still shop at the Men's Wearhouse and Marshall's, but I want to do that because I morally feel the need to not pay any more for shit than I have to, even though paying 10 times as much wouldn't affect my livelyhood.

So that's what drives me.