She Found a Shipping Container on Facebook Marketplace

Two years ago, I got pregnant with a man that I realized I was not going to end up with long-term. By my son's first birthday, I realized that I needed to find somewhere else to live. Looked at Marketplace, looking at rentals. I saw this shipping container home and it was expensive. Went right to the person I had to go to, which was my grandma. I told her I was in a bind. It was very vulnerable and challenging to work up the courage to call her and ask her for help in this way. But I was so desperate that it pushed me to get out of the comfort zone and just ask for help. And she was super willing to help me as I was transitioning to becoming a single mom. Once my grandma helped me out in that huge way, it was a pretty fast process and I was able to be moved in here within a month. This here shipping container is eight feet by 40 feet. So it is 320 square feet. This to me is like a dream home. Like it's living in luxury for me. It is, it really is my dream home. I don't really care that, yes, it's made of a shipping container. Like it's rigged to be like a home. So I feel very lucky to be able to own a home. When I saw this tiny home and saw the layout featuring this living room, I knew that it would function well as a bedroom for my son. So that's what this living room space will ultimately be because it has this nice pullout bed. So sometimes he sleeps here, sometimes he still sleeps with me. This can be a space that grows with him as he gets older, but it's also a space that is a multi-purpose room, like a living room. We can watch TV, listen to music. He can play with toys. And then having the sliding glass doors right here is awesome to just see the river and we can use the patio space as like additional play area, chill zone. The whole tiny house pretty much had this furniture already in it. I only added really a couple of things. So like this and this, they were included in the home. So this is like a bed couch. And then this is a table that folds out into a larger table. So you could turn this facing the other way perpendicular to the wall and it creates more space for four people to sit here and create a dining room area. So having this kind of table really lends itself nicely to hosting people. And even though this is a tiny space, it still allows for gatherings. It's a great community vibe here too. Our neighbors are always sitting out on their back patios when we invite each other over. I had friends come over just last weekend after a show, invited them back. We all hung out. We went in the river. We played music on this patio. So definitely in the summer, having the outdoor space makes it even better, but there's still space for people to hang out in here as well. This style of living works well for me as a single mom because it's just what I need. Right when I saw the posting on Facebook Marketplace, there was like an intuition that this might be the right thing for me at this point in my life. And now that I've been settled here for almost a year, I definitely feel like that was true because it's simple. I don't have too many other things adding to my already full mental load. I can easily clean the space and that helps me be a lot more calm and present as a mom. And it also, the small space here, I think, encourages me to get out into the community more and interact and do fun things in this awesome place that we live. And then last thing with why this tiny home was really good for me in this chapter of my life, the river. Coming here and seeing that and listening to that, it's a really good thing. It's really good for mental health. It's very meditative to just be next to the water and have that constant reminder, all the lessons that we can get from the river. And we've got the train that comes by too. So for a two-year-old boy, it doesn't get better than that to get to see the black steam engine locomotive every day. As a mom, it makes me feel good to be able to provide this stability and cool environment for my son. And it's fun to kind of witness as he's becoming more and more aware over time, he is starting to kind of, it's clicking for him, like, hey, this is a cool spot. And talking to me about the river more and the library and seeing wildlife all the time. So I just know that that's only gonna continue. Some people were like, whoa, you're gonna live on the river with a small child? But that didn't make me afraid. I mean, obviously it's a real danger, but it has not been an issue. And my son's just gonna be more comfortable on the water. This space here does a lot. We've got floor space that becomes a playroom. We've got a catch-all area with some little baskets for stuff I need to organize, shoe basket. This area is meal prep, drying dishes, having meals with my son. And yeah, I love to keep these counters clean as much as possible to add the light. And yeah, they're super easy to clean and never had such nice countertops before. They're actually real. So most tiny homes, they may have cabinets. We've got the floating shelves here. Up here, we've got some of my pottery that I made in my art classroom. So I really like to be able to customize in that way and make the dishware that I need and the colors that I want. And then above that, we've just got some decorative pottery and some more baskets to organize my son's toys. Really, it's been, for me, all about baskets. And that's something that the previous owner of this place said they did. It's also something that I've seen influencers online sharing about, ways to keep your home organized and calm. And yeah, it's been a game changer for me just having baskets everywhere. So that's what we've got going on. Moving a little further back, we're coming into the main kitchen space here. Things that were a must-have for me in the kitchen was having a full-size oven and a stovetop. That was a non-negotiable for me. In other tiny homes I looked at, they wouldn't have an oven, and someone, a realtor, was like, just use an air fryer for everything. And I would just, maybe you can do that, but you can only get so far. So having this is really nice. I don't really use the microwave that much, but it is a nice microwave. Another thing that was important was having counter space to prepare meals. And then this was just a bonus that there was a big sink because there's only a shower and not a bathtub. Having the big sink, it's good for dishes, but it was also important for me to give my son baths in this, too. I like the windows. I like that I can see the mountain, the mesa up there. The end of this space, another thing that's cool is this door pulls out so that you can shut off that bedroom area if you want to. So that's a super cool feature. This thing closes if you wanna shut off sound or you can have it open for more airflow. So yeah, it's interesting because this is a tiny home in a trailer park, but it's the nicest kitchen I've ever had in many ways because these appliances are brand new. They work really well. And yeah, I haven't had any issues. It's cool that these appliances fit in here and they hook up and they work just fine. And it really is crucial for this house to work for my son and I. I can make healthy meals for us easily. We can meal prep. It was kind of a non-negotiable to have the full-size appliance and it works really well. I'm really grateful that we can have it. With a two-year-old in the house, it's important that mealtime can remain as hassle-free as possible. And one of the ways that I can do this is through Wild Grain, who is the sponsor of today's video. Wild Grain is a service that delivers par-baked sourdough, pastries, pasta, and more. It's all frozen when it arrives and stores in the freezer until you are ready to eat it. From frozen to cooked, it only takes 25 minutes or less, so it's fast and easy. Wild Grain is known for their sourdough, and unlike store-bought options, they use simple ingredients, no preservatives, and slow fermentation, which makes it richer in nutrients and antioxidants, and it tastes amazing. Besides the sourdough, they have tons of other options. In this box, I got sourdough, churned French butter, blueberry biscuits, maple Belgian waffle, giant chocolate chunk, ham and cheese fold-over, and croissants. There are gluten-free, vegan, and high-protein options, so no matter what, there are products for you. Wild Grain makes mealtime and snack time easier and healthier for my son and I. I love trying new things to see what is going to become the next staple in our household. If you wanna see why over 40,000 people have given Wild Grain a five-star review, go to the link in this description or scan the QR code. You can use the code TINYHOME30 at checkout for $30 off your first box, as well as free croissants for life. So the cost of the shipping container home was $125,000, and the lot rent each month is $1,100. With the five-year financing that we agreed to, the cost of that, with interest and everything, comes to $1,100. So it is $1,100 for lot rent and $1,100 for financing this, but it's paid off in five years. So that is an insane amount to pay just for your cost of housing each month. That's like double what it should be compared to my whole income, but it was like a very short window to be that tight financially compared to a 30-year mortgage. And keeping in mind, too, just the cost of a house in this area is insane. Even just buying land here could be tons and tons, like a million dollars. And ultimately, after the five years of financing is done, then I'll only have this lot rent cost, and I will have the option to move the shipping container somewhere else where the lot rent could be cheaper. So I have a feeling that that will happen for me. The other factor with keeping it here is that the park does raise the lot rent indefinitely. So I don't love that. I don't love knowing that it's always just gonna go up and up and up every year. And as a teacher, I do make a little bit more as time goes on, but yeah, it's a lot. It could be a lot cheaper on the lot rent, but we're loving it right now. I had to jump through a lot of hoops to figure out how this financing deal would be achieved. I went to the bank, and they were pretty much like, there's nothing that we can do as far as giving a loan for this kind of a home. They just wouldn't do it. The seller was encouraging me to look into getting a loan where you have to have someone that owns a home, and then their home is the collateral on the loan. Trying to get that specific kind of loan, that was a dead end. I didn't know anyone close enough that was a homeowner that could co-sign on that kind of a loan. So just kept relaying that information back to the seller, gave her the figure of what I could put down. Oh, and I forgot to mention too, which this is important, shout out. Most of the money for the down payment came from my grandma, but a chunk of it came from my mom who worked at Amazon, and she made a decent amount of retirement in a short amount of time working for them. And so she just, without hesitation, pulled that money from her retirement account. So thank you, mom. It was back and forth, and there was another person that came in before me and had a higher offer, and so I almost didn't get this place. And the seller said, I'll circle back if it didn't work out, and it ultimately didn't work out, which was great. She called me back and she's like, now I am willing to do this five-year financing with you. She was the only person that I encountered when I was looking at different tiny homes. Most people don't do financing. They just want you to, it's just interesting because someone that has that amount of money accessible probably wouldn't live in a tiny home. So I feel like that's kind of weird where these homes are priced at a huge amount, but then there's not financing available. But I got lucky with my family support and did have enough money to, just enough to get the deal locked in. And then I had enough income to pay it off. And I also have family support and community support to make sure that we're good and to trust that we do have a little bit of a safety net. And it is a little tighter right now while we're paying this off, but it's worth it to be able to own a home. So welcome to the in-between here, the middle zone. One side has these nice sliding mirrors that open up into the bathroom area. And then this side has closet and laundry. Having the space organized in this way, it makes sense. It's just taking up just as much space as it needs to. Like this is the most narrow part here, but it's super nice to have enough room to store all my clothes and to be able to have laundry in here is really clutch. Have not had my own laundry unit in most of the places that I've lived. As a mom, I love that. The layout is not that of a traditional bathroom, but it's working. It is in the middle here and it's the one bathroom for the whole house. But with just my son and I right now, I can't complain. Yes, it impacts when you have guests that there's only one bathroom, but yeah, we make it work. So I don't really mind having it sectioned off like this. And I think it's really nice to have the vanity area here. Like that feels kind of like a luxury. We've got a nice sink. It's small, but like stylish. I like the modern vibe. If I was the one designing the space, I would have definitely made a lot of different choices, but it's kind of cool to get everything with this builder's eye. I wouldn't have chosen this blue color. I wouldn't have chosen like this kind of mirror, but I like it. It feels nice. It feels modern, clean. And yeah, it was a nice blank slate. I love the color that they chose for the shower tiling. It matches the whole color scheme in the rest of the house. And it's got two shower heads. It feels like a luxurious shower and it's a lot nicer than I think like all the other showers that I've had. I do miss having a bathtub, but this is such a nice shower that it's not the end of the world. I can just go in the river. There's other ways I can go soak at a spa being conveniently located in town. So I haven't been as sad about not having a bathtub as I thought I would be because the shower heads are like really nice. Does it often feel like I'm living in a container? I mean, yes. And like, it was an adjustment at first being in here and feeling this dimension, the eight foot dimension and that it's that all the way, but I got used to it. And like putting my own personal touches everywhere in here has really made it feel more like a home. So like, yes and no, it does feel like a shipping container, but not to the point where I don't feel like it's a home. This is my little like cozy cave. It stays very cool here. Can use that for heat in the winter too, but I will say the mini split in the winter, like running that at night for heat, it's very loud. Like that surprised me. So I'm okay with it, but sometimes I won't use the mini split for heat at night. And I will instead like use a space heater or something like that. So that's one thing to note. But yeah, I love these like cool lighting touches that the builder did. And like, it's just a cool bed frame. Another thing that wouldn't necessarily be my style of like this modern kind of bed frame, but I like it. And then I made it kind of work and connect with like my other decorative pieces that I have. And this is my friend's artwork actually behind me, Lil Bud, check him out. Although it is narrow, having like a normal size ceiling when you're laying in bed is nice. Being able to sit up and like hang out on the bed if I want, I can easily close these blinds. So like I can let light in, I can close them and cool it down. And it's nice to have that option to just like shut it, visually shut everything off and just be looking at the river. We've got a nice queen bed here. There is a little bit of a desk area here that you can fold up or put it down for a little bit more space there. But I'm using it right now. I was making some ceramics projects last night and just tucked them away over there for my like stuff in the queue. So this is where I will kind of retire, withdraw to. I can have my son playing or sleeping over there. And then, yeah, I can just like have my alone time at night. I can watch TV. I can like work on my stuff at this table or just like read a book in the bed or what have you. Closing that door off is a nice option for as he gets, my son gets older too, to have a little bit of separation and privacy and yeah, my own space. You can't see how things are ultimately gonna play out, but they do tend to work out if you're putting in the work. If you're waking up with a good attitude and trying and thinking good thoughts and like trying to be on your path towards your intention, ultimately like things will come back around and like fall into place. And it was cool feeling that like intuitive ping when I saw the post for this place. And just, I just had that feeling like this might be my spot and this might, I might get emotional. I'm trying not to. Cause it was just, sorry, it was a really hard time and really like low point, but it led me to such a beautiful place. And it was cool to see that and have people in my life around me so happy to see it happening too. That like in people continuing to recognize that like this is a really big accomplishment and this is like a really cool place. Like when you come in to the home here and you just look out, like everybody can see like, wow, this is actually a really cool thing. It took a lot to get here and I never thought that it would be possible. I never thought that I'd be able to own a home. I thought I'd be renting forever and that made me really sad cause I felt like, I really tried to like do everything to be happy and like successful. And so it's cool that I like stayed the course and I feel like more of an adult, like a real adult. And I feel like I deserve that now that I'm in my thirties and I've like put a lot of work into my career. So it's cool that I get to do what I love in a place that I love and I get to own something. Yeah, it's just all those cheesy quotes that you can think of like about that you need hardship in order to have the really beautiful moments too. So, yeah. All right, so if anyone out there would like to support my son and I, you can go to the link in the description of this video. It'll take you to my Instagram, send me a message and I would love to make you something custom. I do pottery and I do paintings. So you can look at more images there. Shout out to Uncontained. That is the name of the company for the builder of the shipping container home based out of Texas. If you want to check that out. Thank you all for watching. See ya.