Out of My Element

I'm not saying these two made our mattress
but they might have.

BF and I have been sleeping on the same mattress for three years now.  It's a mattress that he had in his old room at his parents house, and I don't even want to know how old it is.  It has reached the point where it is losing all structural integrity and sags in the middle which means that we slide together in the night and wake up all warm.  Add to that the fact that the bed frame fell apart a while ago, and now it's just mattress and box spring sitting on the floor (classy), and we're reached the conclusion that it's time for a new bed.

The problem is, I've never bought a bed before, and the sleuthing I did a few months ago left me very downtrodden.

1. Factor one when mattress shopping--you can't really buy used.  I know, I know, buying a used mattress is kind of gross, which is why you can't do it.  It's illegal to sell a mattress on craigslist or really anywhere else, so unless you have a clean co-worker who happens to be upgrading to a new mattress and wants to unload a gently used one, it seems like you're out of luck.  Which brings me to me second point.
2. Mattresses are expensive!  Holy crap are they ever!  I did a little bit of poking around on line to try to figure out where a person even goes to buy a mattress, and I found that a store called Sleepy's was having a Columbus Day sale (this was a while ago), it seemed reasonable, so we went.  What we found out though, is Sleepy's is crazy expensive and has a mattress showroom where you discuss your mattress needs with a sleep specialist.  Umm, no thank you.
3. There's no happy medium.  We went from Sleepy's to a place called Building 19, which is just as sinister as it sounds.  Sure they had mattresses, but they also had a giant collection of slightly irregular crocs, dented cans, etc.  It was that kind of place, and the mattresses were covered in plastic so filthy, I didn't want to even lie down on them to test them out.  I love warehouse-type stores, but this was just too depressing.  And the mattresses there were still expensive!

So where do poor people buy beds?  Do poor people just not get to have beds/a good night's sleep?  I don't think I can buy a bed at Ikea, I know I can't buy one at Target, so I'm at a loss.

My brother, who is not poor, recently bought a new bed and he raved about the marvelous night's sleep he's been getting by using words like "I had no idea" and "new man."  He also went to some custom mattress factory where he spent hours taking actual naps on floor models until the built him a bed specific to his needs and tastes.  So he's no help.

I turn to you, blogosphere--help!  Any and all advice is appreciated, even if that advice is either that we continue to sleep poorly, or prepare to get a bank loan.