For example, going on vacation, buying a home, car or television, advance in career etc. How different was life between the two?
I will try to give an answer somewhat based on Nicholas Werth's Histoire de L'Union Sovetique 1900-1991 textbook, in its Russian translation. I must warn that I will also utilize my general knowledge gleaned from reading a large number of Russian primary sources that I don't have before me, in many media (including ephemera — such as advertisements and educational films and user manuals).
First, the question of "how different was life between the two" is so hefty a topic that only a huge book could hope to answer this question. It is the absence of clear metrics of "what is a good life?" that spurs so many arguments here and now about the legacy of the Soviet period inside Russia. Simply put, the experiences of living inside USSR and abroad were so different that a there are completely different sets of pros and cons for each. Just to give one prominent example: the incredible sense of security (in the sense of assuredness, or the lack of anxiety) that the average Soviet citizen enjoyed — e. g. job security, social security, clear "game rules", and absence of other anxiety-inducing uncertainties both severely limiting and freeing — could be said to worth much more than any amount of consumer goods. It could also very well be ruled as "not worth it" — including by many, many Soviet citizens themselves!
Other topic that arises often in arguments on Soviet life and its benefits is the lack of dog-eat-dog mentality, the comradeship and the sense of equality and informality when dealing with your neighbours or coworkers... or completely unfamiliar people on a train or in a strange town (also a fond genre of reminiscing about Soviet life). Phrased this way, it is obviously a nostalgic oversimplification, but still reflects a very real atmosphere of "we're all in it together" and the aforementioned "simplified game rules", which facilitated horizontal social contacts, liberating openness and straightforwardness, and the spirit of community. Don't get me wrong, USSR still had all the ugly facets of big city indifference; all the stigmatization and hurtful gossip that comes with small communities; and ugly competition in areas professional and commercial. But still, people recall fondly the very simple and uncomplicated settings in their life that tended to materialize in everyday circumstances: such as when a city courtyard gathered to mark births and deaths as one family; when coworkers actually felt like people working for the best of the country and engaged happily in hiking, hobbies, and social life. Et cetera. There are even songs and poems dedicated to this, just as there are, as I understand, a lot of songs about the spirit of the old country or "decent old values" in US.
This also reflects a great role that a community played in a person's life. A person, even one living in a big city, was not "unobserved and forgotten". He or she would be engaged in the web of social responsibility created by the myriads of "community organisations" (as Werth describes). All facets of a person's life had some organization to help arrange them and to keep an eye on them. No matter if you were a ham radio enthusiast, an avid book reader, a hiker, a chess player, an activist, a car enthusiast, or an athlete — the only feasible, or at least "proper" way of being such was to join an official organisation specially established for it. Not that it was difficult or unpleasant to do so: it was free and encouraged, with a nationwide network of like-minded individuals to welcome you and appropriate magazines and contests created to support the hobby.
One could make a list of downsides for such overt control over the smallest details of citizens' private life (inluding the stifling of truly independent thought and effort), but people also remember fondly when every "decent" interest was actually subsidized and encouraged by the government. It's a staple of nostalgic musings, to mention that modern junkies or hooligans could have been given something to do by the vast system of arts, crafts, and hobbies the nation subsidized — with a large community&concert hall in every small town specifically for arts and hobbies. Just to clear this up, I do NOT think it was an optimal thing to do, and I feel that in many areas of intellectual life, it was singularly stifling and deadening, even with the best intentions. I personally hate what the Soviet system of "promotion and preservation" of folk art did with, well, the folk art.
It is also one of the reasons that many "talent-sifting" hobbies had such a success in USSR: chess, physical sports, and ballet benefited greatly from a centralized system that was designed to push talent upward without any hurdles, until it ended up in elite teams representing the nation.
Second is the simple matter of "did they have that or not". This one is rather easier to answer. The time frame you chose in your question is 1960s. This is the time when Soviet citizens quite demonstrably lagged behind their Western counterparts. Most of the civil programs devised by the Soviet government were quite clearly aimed at eliminating this gap.
Such was Khruschev's nationwide housing program that provided millions of people with individual family flats instead of collective flats (kommunalka's) which offered one or two rooms per family in a larger, repurposed space with a communal kitchen and bathrooms. The individual flats were very clearly described as an achievement that was promised and (by and large) delivered to Soviet citizens, during the 1960s.
Other areas of consumer wellbeing were similarly "catching up" with rising standard of living seen in the West (I have to remind you that the average Western family was also somewhat new to these things, itself transitioned just decades ago from the more traditional and spartan living conditions to the state more or less resembling the "American dream"). This "catching up" was mentioned in no vague terms by Khruschev himself.
So I must say that the much better time to compare Soviet and Western middle class (or we can put it that way: professional worker household) would be the 1970, the so-called Stagnation Era, which saw a very significant rise in standard of living (prepared by the 1960s), further and very active urbanization, and a slow introduction of modern domestic devices and practices into all households, regardless of income.
According to Werth, urbanization was very intense in the USSR; by the start of 1980s, 180 million Soviets lived in cities, and the number of cities with population over 1 000 000 (millionniki) grew from 3 in 1939 to 23. Universal free education (5 million university students at any one time in early 1980s) also facilitated that shift toward professional city populace.
Continued in follow-up comment.
Let's tackle vacation! And home!
Many Soviet families had access to dachas (essentially, little cottages). By definition a dacha is a second home-- it tended to be located outside one's central city of residence; if a small cottage is one's primary home it is not a dacha. One study suggested that as many as a quarter of urban Soviets had access to dachas.
In fact, the existence of dachas predates the USSR-- the world comes from davat, "to give," meaning a small land allotment given by Russian nobility for their serfs to use. Typically the use would be small plot farming of vegetables for their own use, sort of similar to the community garden or community allotments common in North America or the rest of Europe. Dachas tended to be clustered together outside of the cities that they were near, so it was less of an effort to "escape into the wilderness" (the way we Canadians tend to think about cottages which are often quite far away from one another) and more of a collective in a slightly more pastoral setting.
Interestingly, the dacha fulfills both a holiday function and a continuation of the Soviet principle: go to your little "holiday" home and participate in hearty, wholesome, productive leisure activities like growing small crops and spending time outside. I don't have any information about how productive these farms were but my understanding is the vegetable growing was less subsistence and more leisure-- just for fun.
But when could one visit a dacha for a mini break? This is an interesting story too. For an 11 year period, the USSR had no weekends whatsoever. In an effort to stamp out religiosity, from 1929 until 1940 there was no synchronized Sunday day of rest. Workers still had more days off than before (growing from 52 to 70) but they did not all have Sundays off at the same time. This proved ultimately to be quite unpopular-- husbands and wives wouldn't be off at the same time as each other, along with other family members. It stopped people from enjoying the extra leisure they got. I don't have figures about dacha use during this period but I imagine it was low.
During the disruption of WWII-- which had incredible numbers of Soviet casualties-- this system was abandoned in favour of a more common calendar system and days when industrial production was closed. So there would be Sundays off, and occasionally public holidays celebrating (among other things): Labour Day, Mother's Day, Cosmonaut Day, and New Year's Day. In other words, there would be time in the calendar to pack up the family and head out to the dacha to escape the hustle and bustle. They would get there on trains, electrichka.
Ownership of the dacha is also interesting. Most Soviets did not own the homes they lived in (perhaps a small few in more remote places might have been considered "owners," but in fact and not by law); this was part of the idea of breaking down the private sphere. Likewise, the dacha were state owned and until the mid-1960s were given out to the favourites of the party: artists, politicians, writers, etc. Under Khrushchev (whose housing reforms I previously discussed here), dacha access became more readily available to more and more people. You might be given regular access to one through your trade union as a reward for excellent service, perhaps.
There are also further-afield holiday destinations, but these tended to be within the USSR given that most Soviets were forbidden from leaving the USSR without significant permissions. The most popular of which were on the black sea and actually have come to public consciousness recently: Sochi, site of the 2014 Olympics, and Crimea, site of an ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
So, there was holiday and a place to go! But you didn't own it.
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