New2Maine.com

We took a day trip up to the mid-coast region Wednesday. We took along our dog Cindy too, and we intending on a hike in the Bates-Morse Mountain Conservation Area. Alas, the guide book we used didn’t mention that no dogs were allowed in the Conservation Area (although, really, I guess that should be somewhat obvious), so we ended up heading over to Fort Popham at the Popham Beach State Park. There Cindy got to play in the surf a bit:

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

Continue Reading »

Tonight is trash night on Forest Ave. For anyone who’s just moved to Portland, you may be a bit surprised at how Portland handles trash pickup. Instead of it being a city service funded by property taxes, as it was in Troy, NY, or a for-pay service as it was in Delmar, NY, Portland sells trash bags through the local grocery stores. You can get your blue Portland trash bags at the register in the local Hannaford, and I’m sure the Shaw’s up here have them in the trash bag aisle or at the register too. The five-pack of large bags (30 gallon, perhaps?) was $7.50 and we’ve gone through one a week so far. That works out to be cheaper than it was for disposal in Delmar, if we keep up that pace.

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.

I’ve blogged before about difficulty in finding out exactly what is needed to register an out-of-state vehicle. I’m happy to report that we now have accomplished just that, and Her car no longer sports the amusing “Another New York” plates. The vehicle registration process takes two distinctly different steps.

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.

So I went ahead and rented the moving truck yesterday. I looked at several different rental companies and Budget worked out to be the cheapest, especially when you throw in the 10% discount through the USPS Address Change website. We’ve rented the truck for Saturday through Tuesday of this coming weekend. The plan is to pick the truck up Saturday morning and load the contents of our storage unit into it. Then we have a Going Away party Saturday night and church Sunday morning. After church, everything but the bare essentials for sleeping Sunday night goes into the truck. My brother, She, and I will then be heading to Portland first thing Monday morning. I have no idea how long it will take with a moving truck, but I’m hoping it’ll be around 5 hours, so we’ll have the afternoon to unload and then return the truck Tuesday morning.

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.

Finding information on transferring an out-of-state driver’s license was pretty trivial. However, for some reason, it seems to be near impossible to find out how to register an out-of-state vehicle. I’m fairly certain I’ll have to pay excise tax, and I’m okay with that, but all the registration materials I’ve found online talk about paying sales tax and/or having a specific form from a dealer stating that it was paid. I can certainly bring the paperwork I have from my dealer, but this can’t possibly apply to out-of-state sales when I didn’t even live in Maine yet, can it? It looks like a call to the Maine BMV is in order. I’ll post more here when I know the full story.