I think in general just a freer life, less hemmed in and more relaxed. Easier for things to go a little bit wrong, or muck up a little bit without your whole life going to complete hell. I mooched around just figuring life out and prodding the world a bit and had the space and time to do that.
I worked cash in hand for a pittance and spent it without worrying very much. If I fell out with my boss I just got a new boss. It was all less of a big deal. Obviously some people were highly anxious about things but they were unusual and troubled, not the norm.
Rent was low and my bills were too. Other things, like new clothes, were very expensive but it was more like necessary things (shelter, food, heat) were affordable and unnecessary things were expensive, which is the opposite of now where you can afford a computer more powerful than a NASA mainframe but you can't afford to live in a house or have a family.
There's lots I don't miss, but I do feel kids now have been imprisoned in a world built by the middle classes, which is ever so much better according to them but honestly looks awful to me. Just being locked in your house all the time, or driven from one organised activity to another, or to school to be simultaneously hectored and indulged in a bewildering duet. It looks awful. They look like hostages.