I was a few months pregnant with our first and only child, and my husband and I were living in a tiny trailer. It was clear that we would soon need more living space. My husband had a job as a short-order cook at the time and earned a little over minimum wage. We had no savings, and only enough regular income to keep up with the monthly trailer park rent and a few other necessities.

One day my husband came home from work and told me that a woman he worked with was selling a trailer twice the size of ours just a few streets over. She had moved several months before, and now that she was paying a mortgage on a house, she could no longer pay the lot rent. The park owners had given her three weeks to come up with what she owed or they would confiscate the trailer and give her a report of bad credit.

She was more interested in maintaining her good credit than making a profit, so she wasn’t going to charge anything for the trailer itself—only the amount needed to pay the lot rent she owed. My husband told her we would love to live there, but asked if she would give us three weeks to come up with the money. She agreed.