I am talking about the 1980s, when my parents were very young and lines to everything took hours, the only way to make money was sailing abroad and buying stuff that simply didn't exist back home, so you could resell it at premium. Then "economy" broke apart and breadlines followed.
Nylon pantyhose, synthetic coats, electronic household items and other junk were bought by sailors as "school": If you were sailing, you got small allowance in actual money for souvenies and coffee, but they used that to make business instead. So in Genoa, Las Palmas, or Panama, sailors bought whatever they could resell home, extremely rare deficit goods like women's underwear, Japanese tape players, felt pens, makeup kits, and A LOT of synthetic fabrics someone would illegally make clothing for sale from (working from home could get you arrested) etc.
All symbols of the rich bourgeois "abroad," which was swimming in luxuries 90% in USSR couldn't even see... They also bought shirts and new uniforms for themselves, a sailor wouldn't be caught dead in poorly-fitting Soviet fleet-assigned clothing. Lol, the first thing mum bought from her job trip were panties. And footwear. Literally just left her old Soviet shoes in a dumpster outside the shop she got real kicks in.
How poor do you imagine countries where people regularly re-washed plastic bags until the print faded away? That's why Soviet Union collapsed, it's really hard to persuade people they live in the best conditions in the world when the shop shelves are empty, and hiding how rest of the world lives became increasingly harder... Oh and by 1990, food tickets came back, mostly for muskovites because they stopped leeching off Soviet "republics". Had a relative transferred by USSR government from Odesa (Ukraine) to Rybinsk (russia). Had to learn a water-only starvation diet, as he had to practice it for a few weeks because his allowance of 10 eggs a month wasn't enough.
That's why I DO agree with you that we live in most interesting times, but it's even more interesting for previous generation, which witnessed even more change, and many are still alive today to witness... whatever is this craziness. 50s-70s were really stable and boring by comparison.
I'm only working part-time these days, but with today tech I can play games and watch anything online.
