In itself, Money Bag #1, so to speak! (3,2)
I believe the answer is:
per se
'in itself' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'money bag 1 so to speak' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'money' could be 'p' and 'p' is found in the answer.
The remaining letters 'erse' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for per se that I've seen before include "Essentially" , "As such (Latin)" , "Intrinsically" .)