At an average of only 5-6 drinks a week (I like a beer with dinner), I was surprised to find that I am in the upper third of alcohol consumption among men in my age range across the state (well, at least those who have taken the survey). If you’re not sure whether you should be concerned about your alcohol intake, or if you’re curious about how your drinking effects your BAC, take ten minutes and click through this survey. It might save your life.

For a negligible agent fee of $2.00 per car (plus, of course, the tax and registration costs), I was able to complete both registrations in about 10 minutes, including the time it took to run out to the driveway to grab the current registrations, insurance cards, and odometer readings. That’s less time than it would have taken to drive to City Hall and find a parking spot, let waiting in line at the treasurer’s office or the BMV! Well worth the nominal fee, if you ask me. Not every Maine municipality supports the Rapid Renewal service, but many do. Before you queue at your (sometimes not so) local BMV again, I highly recommend you check the list of those that do and see if you can save yourself the trouble. I’m glad I did.

After finally buckling down and finishing our taxes (federal, New York, and Maine) this weekend, I’ve realized that Maine’s income tax really is quite high. Amber and I ended up with refunds from Uncle Sam and New York state, but owing a good chunk of change to our new home state. It seems that ~75% of our AGI came from our time in New York (going from a full-time teacher’s salary to a part time salary dropped Amber’s income significantly). Some how, though, New York only accounted for a hair shy of two-thirds of the state income tax we’ve ended up paying for the year.

That’s right. 25% of our income ended up netting us 33% of our state tax liability. Looking at the numbers a little more closely, the tax rate in Maine ended up being just over 2% higher than in New York (something like 5.1% in NY and 7.2% in Maine). New York was never an inexpensive place to live, tax-wise, and I’d heard Maine wasn’t either, but I had no idea! I guess it’s time to adjust those W-4s…

We dropped my car off at about 8:30 AM last Tuesday. Aside from the oil change and once-over, I mentioned an annoying brake rub in the right rear wheel when cornering hard to the left. He promised he’d check it out. I heard back from Chip before 10:00 AM with a handful of recommendations. In addition to the oil change, I was told that my fuel filter should probably be replaced, and that my alternator belt was pretty weather-worn (I’d noticed some cracking, but didn’t mention it—I wanted to see just how thorough their inspection was). The brake rubbing was caused by a backing plate that was not seated quite correctly. All of this was taken care of for $110 (plus the cost of the oil). Chip also mentioned that the a/c belt was looking a little ragged but would probably last another 5000 miles and so could be replaced with my next oil change. Best of all, my car was ready by lunch time! Fast, thorough service at a fair price—what more can you ask for in a mechanic?

We’ll definitely be trusting both our cars to Chip and his crew in the future. If you own a Subaru and are within reasonable driving distance of Portland, I’d highly recommend you give him a call – (207) 775-2020. If you’re looking for your next car and aren’t quite sure what to get, I’d even suggest looking at Subarus just so you can go to Chip. He’s that good.

She stopped in to see Chip and make an appointment before the holidays. He said he’d like to give the car a thorough once-over before he started looking at the clutch, so She scheduled last Friday as a day that Chip could have the car, give it a look, and tell us what it needed. About 3 ½ hours after we left it with Chip’s staff, Chip himself called me to go over what the car needed (to pass inspection), what the car could really use, and what the car would need in the next few months. I was very impressed by how thorough Chip was in his diagnosis, and by the fact that he didn’t really pressure me to do anything that I didn’t want to pay for right now.

We did end up getting a wheel bearing replaced, the fuel filter changed (probably the first time in years), and a few other things. The bearing has been grinding for a while, and when we took it in to the dealer in NY to have it looked at under warranty, they couldn’t tell us what was wrong (shocking that they wouldn’t find something like that when the car is under warranty, isn’t it?). Chip’s prices seemed reasonable (the clutch, when we do get it replaced, will run about $650, which is better than we’d hoped), and he finished all of the repairs we had done very quickly. The car sounds and runs better than it has in a while, and She is very happy. I’ll be taking my 2002 Impreza WRX to Chip now too.

Chip’s is located at 518 Washington Ave. in Portland (right where the on and off ramps for 295 are). It’s quite easy to get to from downtown if you take Baxter Blvd. (just turn left before getting on 295N). I’d avoid Washington during heavy traffic times if at all possible. Chip can be reached at (207) 775-2020. He seems like he’s pretty busy, but he managed to get us in pretty quickly. I could not find a website for Chip’s, but that’s not unexpected. Chip also sells Subarus, though I did not look at any prices. If you own a Subaru and are anywhere near Portland and in need of service, I highly recommend giving Chip a call.

Check out more photos from the area in our Maine Beaches and Parks photoset.

We also went hiking up around Fort Baldwin, a very cool WWI era fort built to watch for submarines. The hike was quite nice, but we left our bug repellant in the car. Huge mistake. If you intend to go hiking anywhere in Maine during the summer, be sure you’ve sprayed yourself liberally with repellant. You have been warned.

Aside from the mosquitoes, the entire Popham Beach area was great. We didn’t get to go to the main state beach due to having Cindy with us, but the fort areas were great and allowed her to get in the water. The parking at Fort Popham is quite limited, and we ended up paying $7 to park for the day over at the grocery store. Not too bad really, and we were able to get a snack after our hike for a very reasonable price. We’ll definitely be heading back there on our own so we can check out the beach.

Portland also does a single-sort recycling program. Check out this video for more information. The big blue bin needs to be purchased at the DPW building on Portland St. and costs $7.00. I’m quite amazed by just how much is recyclable here. It seems like they recycle just about everything. Some things, like paperboard, I didn’t even know could be recycled, but I’m sure glad that they do. I feel very good about how little I need to put in the trash every week.

1. Pay your excise tax. This is done at the local level, so in Portland, we had to visit City Hall on Congress. In order to accomplish this piece of the registration puzzle, you’ll need the following:
   • Proof of insurance
   • Your VIN
   • Money (they take cash, check, or plastic)

   For Her 2002 Subaru Forester S, the excise tax was $91. For my 2002 Subaru WRX, it was $95. Not too bad, but it’s an annual tax, so it will be a bit expensive over the long run.

2. Go to BMV and fill out the registration and title paperwork. The BMV/DMV is everyone’s favorite place in the world, right? Unfortunately, there’s no way to avoid it. We’ve gone twice so far, once for our Maine driver licenses and once for registration. We breezed in and out at about 1:30 on a Thursday afternoon (driver licenses). The wait at 10:00 AM on Tuesday was quite a bit longer, but it gave us plenty of time to fill out the paperwork. You’ll need to bring the following with you:
   • Receipt excise tax payment
   • Bill of sale for vehicle (just in case, though we didn’t actually need this)
   • Title from previous state of ownership
   • Proof of registration in previous state
   • Proof of current insurance
   • Your current odometer reading

   There are two separate forms to fill out for this part. The first is for your new title in Maine. The second is for the vehicle registration itself. Once your ticket number is called (you’ll need a B ticket for this in Portland–can’t say whether they use the same system at other BMV locations), the actual registration and title process is pretty quick–10 or 15 minutes. The fees are $25 for the registration (annual), and $23 for a new title (one-time).

   If you want a special license plate (the have a lobster plate, a loon plate, a UMaine Black Bear plate, and a UMaine System plate available to the general public), there’s an extra $20 charge. After the first year, you pay $15 extra each renewal year. These extra monies benefit various Maine causes.

So there you go. That’s the process. The Maine BMV site outlines the above process, but isn’t particularly specific about what the differences were depending on whether this was an out-of-state transfer or a vehicle purchased in Maine. The big difference is that you don’t need to pay sales tax, as you didn’t buy it in Maine, and you don’t need the green dealer form they mention (though this is why we brought our bill of sale, just in case). I’ve seen a few hits here searching for information about registration transfers, so hopefully this answers all those questions. If you need any more information, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment.

Total truck rental cost, before taxes and gas, breaks down as follows:

Days included : 2
Estimated miles: 250
1 days added : $56.00
40 miles added : $22.40
Total extra added : $78.40
Truck Size: 16′ Truck
Truck base price: $228.00
July 07 Mover’s Guide – 10% Fri – Sat $22.80
Furniture pads: $13.00
Hand trucks: $0.00
Cost Recovery fee: $9.00
Due at drop off:
Refundable deposit: $150.00
Total estimated price: $305.60

Taxes, at the New York rate, will be somewhere in the neighborhood of $25.00. I’m budgeting $200 for gas and tolls (hopefully it won’t be quite that bad, but I’d doubt this thing gets more than 8 or 10 miles per gallon, so we’re looking at probably 35 gallons, minimum). That brings the total cost to $550.00, give or take. Not great, but much better than the $2000, on average, we were quoted by moving companies.