If I had the money - OLIVER!

[jgilliam1955]

If 75 thousand folks would send me one dollar each, you can make an old man on a fixed income very happy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuFLXavLucE

[ShelbyM]

Me too! Plus another $75K for the 3/4 ton to pull it.

[Iowa Dave]

Head to Iowa. Walk the shoulder of a county road on a Saturday morning and pick up 40 empty soda and beer cans. Cash them in for a nickel apiece. Buy a lottery ticket and put your lucky numbers on the card. Win the lottery. Problem solved. You’re welcome.

Iowa Dave

[C&G in FL]

Fixed income? I scoff at that term. Every working person is on a “fixed income.” What, you say. Do you think if you were employed and were not happy with your wage you would tell your employer and the employer would automatically give you a raise? I don’t think so. Social Security recipients typically get a bump every year in their distribution, yet claim they are on a fixed income. When I hear someone say “I’m on a fixed income” I hold my tongue, but I’d like to tell them to grow up and take responsibility for your situation and stop whining.

Dave…..great comment!

[jgilliam1955]

Originally Posted by Iowa Dave

Head to Iowa. Walk the shoulder of a county road on a Saturday morning and pick up 40 empty soda and beer cans. Cash them in for a nickel apiece. Buy a lottery ticket and put your lucky numbers on the card. Win the lottery. Problem solved. You’re welcome.

Iowa Dave

HAHAHA. In the 70's during our poor years, we delivered phone books and picked up cans.

[jgilliam1955]

Originally Posted by C&G in FL

Fixed income? I scoff at that term. Every working person is on a “fixed income.” What, you say. Do you think if you were employed and were not happy with your wage you would tell your employer and the employer would automatically give you a raise? I don’t think so. Social Security recipients typically get a bump every year in their distribution, yet claim they are on a fixed income. When I hear someone say “I’m on a fixed income” I hold my tongue, but I’d like to tell them to grow up and take responsibility for your situation and stop whining.

Dave…..great comment!

You read like you are angry..LOL This post is meant as humor.

[ShelbyM]

Yeah, weird response and I didn't read the OP as "whining." "Limited income" might have been a better choice, though cost of living increases never keep up with real world inflation and returning to work isn't a realistic option for most seniors. Personally, I've found keeping to a beer budget is a fair trade off for not having to go to work every day!

[Iowa Dave]

A good friend of ours has the tag line “Camping, where you spend a small fortune to live like a homeless person.” There’s some truth to that.

My many years of working to acquire just the “right” equipment to excel at a pursuit have allowed me to finally realize that simple pleasures, good friends, and good memories outweigh acquisition of “stuff.”

Growing up we had great good, a united nuclear family and as my dad would remark “ a good Christmas.”

Dad would often reprise the line from Robert Louis Stevenson’s “A Child’s Book of Garden Verses.”
The world is full of so many wonderful things I’m sure we should all be as happy as Kings. (Something close to that).
Then he’d quickly shift to the reality of raising three adventurous boys and say “why don’t you guys go for a hike and “get the stink blowed off of you”? “Take a canteen, be back before the street lights come on.”
If there was natures bounty to be harvested we did. Otherwise we came home dirty, hungry and mentally refreshed.

Modern day camping with self contained trailers, road maps, and $6 ice cream cones is a far cry from what many of us experienced as children but it is in some ways an attempt to connect with our long ago childhood. Get out, look for ten signs of animals and tracks don’t count. The wind, the sun, the bird songs and the air you breathe are free. Income is irrelevant to joy and mental peace. In my opinion. May the Fourth be with you.
Iowa Dave

[Jon in AZ]

I took the original comments as a humorous introduction to a video highlighting one of our “own” companies getting some good press.

“Best trailer ever” is hyperbole, of course. There is a lot of thought that went into the Oliver, and it’s truly an impressive product. But- cost aside- it’s not for everyone nor for every camping style.

I chanced to meet John Oliver, one of the original creators of the design, in the parking lot at our local grocery store a number of years back. His own rig was modest.. He had the smaller 19’ Ollie hitched to a Nissan Frontier Pro-4X, both mud-spattered from recent fall rains . He was very down to earth and more interested in talking about his Southwest hunting trip than his company or trailer. He had just finished a hunt in NM and was on his way to another in CO.

I was sad to hear he passed and happy to see his legacy thriving, but I will always remember his personal humility.

[jgilliam1955]

Originally Posted by ShelbyM

Personally, I've found keeping to a beer budget is a fair trade off for not having to go to work every day!

Truer words have never been spoken.

[C&G in FL]

Originally Posted by jgilliam1955

You read like you are angry..LOL This post is meant as humor.

No, not angry. Just pointing out that old and retired (like me) are not the only ones without unlimited finances. And I did not think that the OP was seriously asking for a dollar apiece from thousands of individuals. In my experience, many who say “I’m on a fixed income” seem to think others should have pity on them. We are all responsible for ourselves up to a point (establishing retirement funding), and I would agree that limited income is a better term than fixed income. Most everyone deals with a limited income (except the government, of course!).

[Donna D.]

I was salaried for most of my career. To ME, it was a fixed income because it didn't matter how hard I worked, how many hours I worked per day, the pay was going to be the same. No overtime in a salary/fixed income job. All bumps in pay were at the discretion of the bosses. More than one way to look at things.....

[jgilliam1955]

Limited income or Fixed income it is the same to me. When someone uses this term, it means they are no longer working at their full-time job. I have worked city jobs and private business. The private business I retired from, the longer you worked there the less pay raise you received. I got outstanding every year and my last 10 years I would get a 1% pay raise. My supervisor would apologized to me. In 2015 the company did away with Retirement pension. You have to fund your own and the company puts in a little bit.
I read how 401K's were pushed to companies. In 20 years, the employees could fund their own retirement.

[Iowa Dave]

We had four municipal Golf Courses.. we were
Very reasonably priced to the degree that we did not make any profit some years. That’s the way public recreation was run for years. We raised prices one year for less than 50 cents per round. . We got complaint calls. I was an acting director and the recipient of the calls. I got tired of hearing the term
“Fixed income” from retired guys who maxed out their “season pass to less than $1.00 a round. So when a guy said “I’m on a fixed income.” I said “yeah but what is it fixed at?. That pissed him off and I was shortly in the commissioners office. He was not
Mad and said the guy deserved it but I should probably refrain from Antagonizing callers. That old guy is dead now and the old Commish and I have coffee every Tuesday on our govamint pension.
Iowa Dave

[jgilliam1955]

Originally Posted by Iowa Dave

We had four municipal Golf Courses.. we were
Very reasonably priced to the degree that we did not make any profit some years. That’s the way public recreation was run for years. We raised prices one year for less than 50 cents per round. . We got complaint calls. I was an acting director and the recipient of the calls. I got tired of hearing the term
“Fixed income” from retired guys who maxed out their “season pass to less than $1.00 a round. So when a guy said “I’m on a fixed income.” I said “yeah but what is it fixed at?. That pissed him off and I was shortly in the commissioners office. He was not
Mad and said the guy deserved it but I should probably refrain from Antagonizing callers. That old guy is dead now and the old Commish and I have coffee every Tuesday on our govamint pension.
Iowa Dave

Love it.

[dylanear]

I got my first in person close up look at an Oliver recently and they are GORGEOUS. A really high end, really well made egg!!! Not cheap at all, but the price is what it is for good reasons! I was VERY impressed!

I don't know the specs, but my impression was they are not going to be as light weight as most eggs of similar size.

If I happen to win the lottery, surely a full sized, higher end egg would be on my shopping list and I'd have to really compared Escapes and Olivers and decide which met my desires better. Maybe there's comparable brands I am just not aware of, I haven't had my mind on eggs the last decade that my Scamp has been stored and ignored. But those two are the ones that seem to be about what I'd be wanting for a roomy option when low weight wasn't super important.

Granted if I won the lottery I'd still probably keep my old '01 Scamp and do a really serious off frame restoration and customization to have as my small and light, super easy to tow option in my garage! It's got a place in my heart for sure! The wide variety of egg options is part of why it's such an intriguing segment of the camper world.

[WillyB]

The Oliver's are really great in terms of construction quality and that they are double hauled which makes them great in extended cold weather camping. Although out of our price range we really liked the twin bed Elite II unit. We were not a fan of the small refrigerator (4 CuFt?) and the 15 Gal black tank. I say this because we have a 7 CuFt fridge that we love and our 22 Gal black tank is our limitation for extended off grid.

We retired in Oct '24 and our running joke is using the phrase, "We're on a fixed income". We're hoping to get a few comped dinners from our still working friends but I think they're on to us.

[Iowa Dave]

I know the feeling Willy. The old Czechs I grew up around used to say “Duck dinner, you bring the duck.”
I don’t think I have any friends from When I worked who aren’t retired either that or they don’t like me.
Iowa Dave

[Paula]

Hey JG
Get a loan like some of us do to get the big ticket items.
Check out the classified. My 2015 legacy elite is for sale and she pulls great without a big ol truck.

[computerspook]

Originally Posted by ShelbyM

Me too! Plus another $75K for the 3/4 ton to pull it.

At least you are thinking of what you really need to make it happen