I've been home now for two weeks. In that two weeks, I've completed the following on my to-do list:

• Bank account opened
• SECURED Visa card secured and applied (my US Credit Report--which is good--is useless)
• Medical Services Plan (MSP from here on in) bill paid and PHN activated
• Cell phone acquired and new number replaced on resume

Things remaining to be done:

• Find a job
• Find a car
• Find a place to live

First up, job. I had a job lined up before I came back, but it all went pear-shaped. They ended up hiring someone who could start earlier than I could get back. I've had three or four interviews so far, but nothing concrete yet. One of the interviews was a good opportunity, but wayyyy the hell out in the boondocks. I can get my head around it, and they flat-out suggested I relocate out there (40 mins or so out of town) at least for a year or so until the new bridges are finished. The problem I have with that is that I've spent the last 10 years of my life "one year at a time" and roaming from apartment to apartment every year when the lease was up. That's not why I decided to come home again. The job will sort itself out eventually, although I might take some contract work if nothing turns up in the next month or so just to have some income flowing in.

Finding a place to live will tie in with the job. I've been hearing conflicting theories from friends about housing, so I'll just wait it out and then figure it out for myself once I know where I'll be working. I don't want to head out to the far 'burbs if I'm going to be working downtown, and I don't want to get something in town if I'm working out in the sticks. Gas prices are coming down, but it's still $1.32/liter and I don't see it dropping TOO much more as we get away from peak-summer-usage.

Gasoline (petrol) of course leads back to transportation. I'm driving my late Grampa's car at the moment. An Oldsmobile 98. I'm serious... it's the biggest modern car I've ever seen in my life. I feel like I have to raise my voice to make sure the person all the way over in the passenger seat can hear me. It rides nice, it has power everything and good a/c, but I think if I have to drive it much longer, I'm going to start wearing hats and hitching my pants up to my armpits.

I've been spending as much time on Autotrader and Driving.ca as  I have on Monster or VancouverJobShop.ca in the last week or so and I've set my budget for $5000. After looking around and test-driving about 30 cars, I think that the $5000 price point has got to be the most difficult budget to hit. In Vancouver, $5000 gets you a 98-99 Toyota Corolla or Honda Civic with 200,000 km on the odometer. Alternatively it will get you a 95-97 with 115-125 thousand km. They're fine, they're solid, and they're base model. Manual windows, manual locks, maybe a/c if you're lucky.

What I forgot about, or chose to forget was sales tax. %5 provincial and 7% federal sales tax. That's 12%! That means to hit that 5000 mark, the car has to be $4400. That shrinks the pool dramatically, unless I want to stray into old Pontiac or old Chevy Cavalier territory... which I don't. The other thing is insurance. Everyone was gobsmacked in Cayman when I said my insurance was $1100. It was a Jeep with a soft-top, which is a license to gouge you for insurance, even though it was only 3rd party liability and was no insurance or protection against your own car. Fortunately  I had 60% no-claims discount so my annual insurance premium was about $450.

Here at home, I have a friend who used to live in Cayman who is an Autoplan agent here. He sent me some info last month before I left about how to get a properly-featured letter from my insurance company outlining my no-claims history. Based upon that letter, ICBC would then "credit" me for no-claims discounts if I could show no gaps in coverage since last time I had insurance with them. In the end, Ken SMS'd me and said that ICBC was going to give me a 40% discount. That's the good news. The BAD news is that for a 97 Toyota Corolla, driven to and from work as well as for personal use was $2500!! Minus 40% is still about $1300! Fortunately they'll let you sign a note and break it into 12 monthly payments at only 3.75%

So, to recap: $5000 car comes out to 5600, and then 2500 annual insurance premium is an up-front cost of potentially 8100. Add on fuel (at $1.30/liter) and maintenance (and of course tax on both of those) and it's easily going to be a $10,000 "investment" in transportation. The only problem with that of course is calling it an investment. An investment is something that provides a return.