What were the ponies?

Yes, I do blame Thatcher, and Reagan, for popularising an attitude where money is seen as the most important thing. It's an attitude where people who don't make a lot of money are called losers. People are expected to want large amounts of money for their work, to recognise their 'talent'.

The Thatcher-Reagan-AynRand way of thinking replaced a previously popular idea that money was not central. As de Valera once put it,

The ideal Ireland that we would have, the Ireland that we dreamed of, would be the home of a people who valued material wealth only as a basis for right living…

Frugal comfort would be seen as loserdom post-Thatcher et al.