In 80, 81, we lived solely on my salary. I got 2700, paid the installment for the house, 500 installment for the loan of 1200 lei and we still could afford to go once a year to the seaside for 10 or 12 days. We could afford all this from a salary. The truth we did not have a car, there weren?t other expenses. (I. H., 29)

The little money we had went to pay enormous prices for food and clothes. There were many jokes about it. For instance, they used to say that Romanian women were the sexiest because there wasn?t any lingerie on the market. (A. Bo., 47)

When food was increasingly hard to find and less diversified in the shops of Bucharest, the party newspaper ?Scanteia? would write texts as the following:

? The buying power- increasingly bigger!? (13 June 1978)

? The food supplies for the population will be improved. In the future, the focus will be on achieving an adequate structure of the alimentation, so that it may meet the population?s rational and scientifically grounded needs for food and alimentary hygiene.? (22 September 1979)

? As to food consumption, the focus will be on improving the structure and increasing the quality of the products, ensuring the food supplies for the population by highly nutritional products and diversified merchandise, by a substantial increase of the market of vegetables, fruit and fruit products.? (22 September 1979) (72)