House Hunting Continued

After deciding to stick with my current apartment and investing a small but pretty penny into improvements, I realize that ultimately the reason I may have such a hard time feeling satisfied and settled in the home that I have is because it is not my home, it is a space I rent from someone else and which ultimately I do not own. It is not permanent and I can not posses it.
Sadly, this is the plight of myself and so many other people I know. I've spent a lot of time researching purchasing a home and can find no way in which it is a viable option based on my current means. A friend of mine found a place a few blocks away from her that is in the $130,000 range. Its affordable because the backyard backs up to some train tracks that, although not a busy thoroughfare, is still in use. Even at that extremely low price, a 30 year mortgage would be something like $900 per month and would end up costing more like $330,000. Not to mention maintenance and property taxes. How do I get away from renting when the hard numbers prevent me from even entertaining the idea of this being a possibility for me? My current rental payment is a little over half of that amount, and it's essentially my comfortable ceiling. Add a car payment and student loans to that and even my *good* income gets stretched very thin.
I guess all I can do is continue to focus on my goals and also continue to research alternatives to the traditional mortgage path. Maybe I'll get really lucky and a relative I don't even know will leave me enough to buy whatever house I want. Ahhh, a girl can dream.