Amber was struggling "for years" when she realised she could buy a home for just $85,000.

A Queensland mum struggling to pay rent managed to buy a brand new home with just $55,000 in savings and will have her custom-made sanctuary paid off within a few years.

Sound too good to be true? There is a big - well, tiny - compromise she had to make.

Amber shared a three-bedroom unit with her son in Queensland’s Darling Downs and said she had been “struggling for years and years” when the rent went up again last year.

“Most of my money was going toward rent and all I could think was, ‘I am paying off someone else’s dream’,” the 47-year-old artist told Yahoo Finance.

The Army veteran desperately wanted to get into the property market but she wasn’t making enough money to be considered for a loan. As the years passed, prices continued to climb, her finances were drained by the rising cost of living, and her dream started feeling further out of reach.“I knew my son would leave home and I would be alone trying to pay the bills. Sometimes there wasn’t enough money for food. It’s just crazy,” she said.

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Amber had never considered that she might be able to buy a new build with a clean, modern design, let alone with such a short turnaround. But that’s exactly what happened after she gave up on the suburban rental grind and plonked an $85,000 tiny home in the countryside.

“I ordered it in January and moved in in March,” Amber said.

‘Shipping container with windows’: Realities of living in a tiny home

For the six-foot-tall mum, home sweet home is inside an insulated metal shell measuring 7.5 metres long, 2.5 metres wide and 3.4 metres tall.There’s a no-frills kitchen, bedroom, living room and bathroom, with enough windows to ensure she’s drenched in natural light and, at night, given a spectacular view of the stars.

She cooks using an air fryer and has a camping gas stove but is planning to set up a BBQ when she extends her deck and installs raised vegetable garden beds. These renovations are all possible given she’s not paying off a 30-year mortgage.