It's interesting how different this is from my perspective growing up in a family that was quite poor for the most of the late 80s and early 90s in just-became-capitalist Poland.
Some things were exactly as described:
Cars and constant worry about repairs, but my dad was pretty good at repairs so despite all our cars being 20+ years old (and not Mercedes, but more like a Fiat 125p) we were OK with transport. Also living in a medium sized city public transport was always good.
Food - The author mentioned eating lots of rice, for us it was potatoes. I had a family member in Germany, so I still remember the first orange I ever are (from a Christmas gift pack from that aunt in Germany). Sweets like chocolate-from that same pack) were were usually divided into single squares and I would get one a day until it lasted.
Then there were things that differed a lot:
Travel&Holidays: When I was 10 we went for "holidays" in Germany in the summer (holidays in quotes, because I had holidays while my parents worked on some farm). At the time I never had allowance etc, but I'd get money from extended family members for various holidays, birthdays in years prior. I saved most of it for years. When we went to Germany I felt pretty rich as after exchange it amounted to 20 marks (about 40 EUR today I guess) so I could buy myself a really nice toy. Yes we drove our 20 year old fiat 125p for 18h all the way and yes it did break down once mid way...
Otherwise travel&holidays meant living with my grandma in the countryside during the summer when the school was off.
Accommodation :
My parents did get a flat back in the communist system after waiting 8 years for it living in shared accommodation (with 2 kids). So we had it pretty good. Also I was pretty shocked when I read this:
>How many times have they turned off your water?”.
Back then (and now I think) it was illegal to disconnect essential services like water without an eviction order. There were times when we didn't pay for amenities for 10 months and we ate mostly potatoes(I still consider a full plate of fries by themselves a proper dinner - you needed oil too and lots of it so it was quite a luxury) and we were never disconnected from water/heat, but that might have been a local thing to my housing association.
Safety:
There was never a risk of getting shot, the closest was getting blown up by some explosives left in the ground (as there was this abandoned military base nearby). Crime was getting your fruit stolen on a tiny plot of land in the "community gardens" or getting punched in the face by some drunk. Thieves would never steal potatoes from the ground, but everyone kept their preserves and potatoes in cellars (under an apartment building, every flat would have it's own cellar) and these were frequently stolen.
Heathcare: we had access to national healthcare for most of the time(when my dad was unemployed he was registered as "looking for work" so the state paid for it), but the quality of it really varies (to say the least). For example dental work - if you want your teeth pulled out in emergency, yes national heath care in 90s Poland is great for that. If you want cosmetic work done? Maybe you will wait 12 months, and then after it's done it will fall apart after a week... Typically you didn't do cosmetic work if you couldn't afford to go private.
Really life threatening stuff was handled fairly well (although 2 of my grandparents died as a result of medical mistakes - specifically one getting normal hospital food after waking up from a gastric surgery, the other going in for gall stone removal and getting pneumonia there as they'd just leave the windows open for hours on end forgetting to close them in winter).
So here we go, this is how being mid-level-poor looked like in Poland in the 90s. Why mid-level? Well, because we always had cars, we never went hungry, and after an entire extended family chipped in I did manage to get a computer I wanted (a commodore 64) when I was 12 so I'm not even sure it really classes as being that poor. At the time unemployment was 40% at the worst of it many people had it much worse, but I guess my parents always had higher aspirations so they felt pretty bad not being able to afferd better food, or not paying amenities for months and months wondering if their electricity will get turned off today (electric is not considered essentially).
Some things were exactly as described: Cars and constant worry about repairs, but my dad was pretty good at repairs so despite all our cars being 20+ years old (and not Mercedes, but more like a Fiat 125p) we were OK with transport. Also living in a medium sized city public transport was always good.
Food - The author mentioned eating lots of rice, for us it was potatoes. I had a family member in Germany, so I still remember the first orange I ever are (from a Christmas gift pack from that aunt in Germany). Sweets like chocolate-from that same pack) were were usually divided into single squares and I would get one a day until it lasted.
Then there were things that differed a lot:
Travel&Holidays: When I was 10 we went for "holidays" in Germany in the summer (holidays in quotes, because I had holidays while my parents worked on some farm). At the time I never had allowance etc, but I'd get money from extended family members for various holidays, birthdays in years prior. I saved most of it for years. When we went to Germany I felt pretty rich as after exchange it amounted to 20 marks (about 40 EUR today I guess) so I could buy myself a really nice toy. Yes we drove our 20 year old fiat 125p for 18h all the way and yes it did break down once mid way... Otherwise travel&holidays meant living with my grandma in the countryside during the summer when the school was off.
Accommodation : My parents did get a flat back in the communist system after waiting 8 years for it living in shared accommodation (with 2 kids). So we had it pretty good. Also I was pretty shocked when I read this: >How many times have they turned off your water?”. Back then (and now I think) it was illegal to disconnect essential services like water without an eviction order. There were times when we didn't pay for amenities for 10 months and we ate mostly potatoes(I still consider a full plate of fries by themselves a proper dinner - you needed oil too and lots of it so it was quite a luxury) and we were never disconnected from water/heat, but that might have been a local thing to my housing association.
Safety: There was never a risk of getting shot, the closest was getting blown up by some explosives left in the ground (as there was this abandoned military base nearby). Crime was getting your fruit stolen on a tiny plot of land in the "community gardens" or getting punched in the face by some drunk. Thieves would never steal potatoes from the ground, but everyone kept their preserves and potatoes in cellars (under an apartment building, every flat would have it's own cellar) and these were frequently stolen.
Heathcare: we had access to national healthcare for most of the time(when my dad was unemployed he was registered as "looking for work" so the state paid for it), but the quality of it really varies (to say the least). For example dental work - if you want your teeth pulled out in emergency, yes national heath care in 90s Poland is great for that. If you want cosmetic work done? Maybe you will wait 12 months, and then after it's done it will fall apart after a week... Typically you didn't do cosmetic work if you couldn't afford to go private. Really life threatening stuff was handled fairly well (although 2 of my grandparents died as a result of medical mistakes - specifically one getting normal hospital food after waking up from a gastric surgery, the other going in for gall stone removal and getting pneumonia there as they'd just leave the windows open for hours on end forgetting to close them in winter).
So here we go, this is how being mid-level-poor looked like in Poland in the 90s. Why mid-level? Well, because we always had cars, we never went hungry, and after an entire extended family chipped in I did manage to get a computer I wanted (a commodore 64) when I was 12 so I'm not even sure it really classes as being that poor. At the time unemployment was 40% at the worst of it many people had it much worse, but I guess my parents always had higher aspirations so they felt pretty bad not being able to afferd better food, or not paying amenities for months and months wondering if their electricity will get turned off today (electric is not considered essentially).