Being erudite, left and made money (7)
I believe the answer is:
learned
'being erudite' is the definition.
('learned' can be a synonym of 'erudite')
'left and made money' is the wordplay.
'left' becomes 'l' (common abbreviation).
'and' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'made money' becomes 'earned' (I've seen this before).
'l'+'earned'='LEARNED'
(Other definitions for learned that I've seen before include "Full of knowledge" , "Educated, scholarly" , "Having great knowledge" , "Literati" , "Acquired and digested knowledge" .)