The short answer is: with growing difficulty (due to the collapse of the economy).

The soviet union never stopped using money and its citizens were always paying for goods they needed, so in this respect it was mostly a case of having to pay for some more things that were previously supplied.

For a lot of detail about how the soviet economy worked see this question and its answers, in particular those by /u/Barton_Foley. It does however not say much about the lived experience of the people at the time, though I expect all the other mess going on after the breakup is hard to separate from the particular experience of having to buy all your stuff yourself.