In my younger days, I used to associate wanting to make money with materialism.

To be fair, it isn’t uncommon to see those with a desire to make money, also exhibiting behaviors of extravagance and a tendency to spend a lot of the money they make.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve realized most of us in our working years want to maximize our earning potential and make money.

Our motivations differ however

But, I’ve also realized the motivations for doing so vary greatly. For example, take any of the hypothetical characters and their scenarios below:

• Joe wants to earn more money so he can buy nice things: a large house for his family, a luxury car, multiple Rolex watches. He likes spending on things that will bring him joy.

• Lisa loves to travel and build memories. All of her paychecks go into experiencing new restaurants, traveling to foreign countries and exploring different hobbies.

• Mark earns his money and is addicted to saving and investing. Every dollar he makes, he tracks, and then invests in index funds and other investment vehicles. His goal is to be financially free and independent.

• Ashley makes money and spends it on others. She puts her children in extracurriculars that are expensive but will enrich their lives and make them well-rounded individuals. Ashley also helps her aging parents and assists her siblings financially and emotionally. She also donates to charity with whatever leftover money she has.

These are all fictional characters, but humans are mostly all varying combinations of Joe, Lisa, Mark, Ashley. You could say Joe is the most materialistic and Ashley is the most altruistic, but the fact is, we all have different things that drive us in life. Neither is inherently wrong.

Money and its importance to life

There is no arguing that money is a necessary aspect of life. If you don’t have it, meeting the basic needs of food, shelter, and water becomes difficult.

But once the basic needs are met, we then have discretionary income which can go into any of the buckets identified above in our Joe, Lisa, Mark, Ashley scenario.

1. Things (houses, cars, watches, purses, any material comforts)

2. Experiences (travel, eating, hobbies)

3. Saving and Investing

4. Donations (family, friends, charity)

I might be missing some categories, but these are the big ones. And depending on your priorities or goals in life, you will value certain categories over others.

Why being money motivated isn’t bad

The truth is being money motivated isn’t good or bad. With a caveat – as long as you aren’t hurting, cheating, or stealing from others.

Some may not draw a line there, but I personally do.

Being money motivated for me means that I am working towards some goal with the money I earn. I recently saw a great chart, which I couldn’t seem to find again, so I replicated it below. Photo credits to the original artist!

This chart shows how most of us value money over time. We graduate from college (or get serious in life) around 22 years old, give or take.

Then we’re on our own, no parents to lean on. So we start caring about money, because dang – food, housing and fun are expensive!

Over time, we find a significant other, maybe have a few kids, buy a house, and life’s expenses in general go up. Naturally, there is a desire to make more money to finance our lifestyles and additional commitments.

Then, we continue to care about money for a looooong time, until we don’t. Usually around 65 years old, when Social Security, Medicare and pensions (do those exist anymore?) kick in and we hopefully have enough savings and investments to live off of until we croak. Which on average is around 77 years old in the United States.

There is nothing wrong with this path. It has worked for a lot of people. But my goal is to shift that curve where I stop caring about money to the left. It’s why I am money-motivated today – because I don’t want to be tomorrow.

Money means freedom of time

The ability to not have to care about money is attractive for those seeking freedom of time.

Why is time so important, you may ask? Time (as a function of financial freedom) means you can work on what you want. It means you can spend more time with family and friends, who won’t be around forever.

Time means you can prioritize your health and well-being to ensure the remaining years of life are high quality due to better fitness and dietary habits.

I don’t subscribe to the Financial Independence Retire Early (FIRE) movement.

Instead, I want to have enough money in “retirement” to enjoy my life. It’s why I am in sales and my partner is in a high growth cyber security career. We both like having a nice house, eating out and traveling.

But we balance that with saving >50% of our incomes every year, and heavily investing into the stock market via index funds.

Going down this journey of making goals of freedom of money and time, has made me double down on the idea that wanting to make money is not inherently bad. We all have our reasons, one no less valid than the others.

Sales for the money motivated

If any of the above resonated at all, a career in sales is or may be the right career path for you.

In fact, as I’ve helped recruit sales people for my current company, I have seen our recruiters ask candidates directly if they are money-motivated. It’s a good question!

And it’s true – outside of entrepreneurship, I haven’t found a better high wage earning career for money-motivated individuals than software sales.

Yes, you can become a software engineer, but honestly, working for Amazon, Meta, or Google seems a bit boring (besides the free food, that sounds awesome). But then again, maybe I am biased.

On the flip side, high stress careers like investment banking will also bring in the big bucks, but at the sacrifice of balancing your health, sleep and general well-being.

I have not found a better balanced, with high financial upside career than sales for money-motivated individuals. Where else can you earn $200K+ with just a college degree (and in some cases, no degree) as early as age 26-27?

In conclusion, it is up to you what your balance is of how you treat money in your life. We all have varying circumstances, motivations and priorities. But regardless, you shouldn’t feel guilty about wanting to make money.

We all do, just for different reasons.