There were various advertising leaflets and flyers prompting them to choose innovative household items, which could be bought on the never-never. Igor Duda says that there was a particularly great rise in hire-purchase agreements in 1956, when there was an increase of about 50%. This rise was particularly marked in the case of loans with a two- and three-year repayment period, which consumers mostly used for the purchase of various household appliances. From 1962 to 1965, the demand for state-of-the-art appliances rose five times, while the real purchasing power of wages increased by just a third, and the number of hire-purchase loans by a fifth (Duda 2004: 65).

“Spending in the sixties was on the rise thanks to the earnings of increasing numbers of workers employed short-term abroad, who brought in new habits and previously undreamed of products and used their hard-currency earnings to boost the family standard of living” (Duda 2004: 68). “The support of the working class was won by the raising of the the quality of life. The purchasing power of the population started rising in 1970, reached its peak in 1979 and at the end of the eighties dropped back to the values from the early seventies” (Duda 2010: 156)

Up to the appearance of electricity, space heating mostly meant using closed solid-fuel stoves. Solid-fuel ranges (wood and coal) were used for cooking and space heating the room most time was spent in during the day. In rural houses, these ranges have stayed in use down to this day, as they have in some family houses in the cities as well. The introduction of gas and electric cookers allowed food to be prepared simpler and faster, and more numerous families could have combined (gas and electric) cookers, which proved particularly practical in the 1980s when there were cuts of both gas and electricity; such cookers were particularly popular in the towns.

In the fifties most households did not have electric refrigerators but used insulated ice-boxes. Into the boxes, or cupboards, they would put big blocks of ice, from 3 to 5 kilos in weight, brought from the Iceworks in today’s Bauer Street. This meant food could be kept cool for just two days, until the ice had melted. Such iceboxes were in use from the 1930s, but in the mid-20th century the mass production of fridges and their use in households started, along with the design of their exteriors. Adverts for these appliances mostly showed the doors open so as to depict the design of shelves and compartments.