A possible Transportation solution...

When my fiance moves out to California, we are left with 2 options...

1) Bring the old '91 ford something with 130,000+ miles on it to California... or
2) Sell the car in Utah and be a one vehicle family in California.

The decision may be made for us because of the California emission standards. Because Keith's car is old, there is a very high chance that we'd end up paying a lot of money to make it California road savvy... or that it will fail to pass its SMOG entirely.

Getting a 2nd car in California is out of the question because we wouldn't be able to pay for the payments (which i'm against anyway) &/or afford to buy a used car like my mom's old truck. A 2nd car may be a luxury we will have to do without... but can we? YES

Option 1
The best case scenario is that the car will pass SMOG standards and come to California with little or no repairs needed. I called my State Farm insurance gal up and she gave me an estimated quote, a bit under $300 for 6 months... so monthly it would be around $50 a month in insurance plus gas, & registration fees, and any future maint issues the old car has. This means that Keith could get a job and not worry about if public transportation would get him from A to B.

Option 2
If the car can't come because its too expensive to fix, our plan is for my fiance to find a job locally where he could walk, bike, or use the bus. Monthly, bus passes are $55 (just slightly higher than car insurance) and we wouldn't have gas or registration fees or maintenace to worry about. Thankfully we are close to lots of shopping centers and a few good bus routes. Since keith will eventually be going to school part time once we are settled in, these are most likely the jobs he will be applying for. (He can also take the bus to school for classes down at the community college, and for night classes i'd already be home so he could just drive the Camry.)

Option 3
Lets say Keith finds a good job that's out of the scope of public transit... I wouldn't be able to take the bus to work because it doesn't run early enough to get me where I need to be by 5:15am... but I could take the bus home, with little walking needed on my part. This would mean that my fiance would have to get up with me at the butt crack of dawn to drop me off at work, but then he could work out in the morning at the gym (yeah free membership), then head home and get ready for his job and take the car. It would take me about an hour and a half to get home on the bus instead of 15-20 mins by car.... but we could make it work.

and i'm sure my mother would let us borrow the truck if there was a day or so where we both needed wheels.

I have to say I was surprized to find out how easy it is to use the public transportation system here (i've never use it before... and I haven't yet)but its nice to know I can buy the bus passes at my grocery store when i'm picking up normal things, and because I have to switch buses, the monthly pass makes the most affordable solution.

Keith is going to look into how much it would cost for his car to pass CA smog still, but its nice to know what our options are.