Tag, That's It

Monday morning, I got a text that was a surprise for two reasons.  First, Sarah had taken our Mazda to the tag agency to get an Oklahoma tag (that's what they call license plates out here in the old Indian Territory) and second, we had forgotten to change the insurance on the Mazda to Oklahoma insurance.  

The result: One unsuccessful attempt to register our car in Oklahoma as a car needs valid Oklahoma insurance to be registered here.

Tuesday morning, I got a phone call that was a surprise for two reasons.  First, Sarah usually doesn't call me while I'm at school (she texts me) and second, the VIN on our Oklahoma insurance card didn't match the VIN on the Utah title or the VIN on the actual car.

The result: A second unsuccessful attempt to register our car in Oklahoma as a car needs its VIN to match both the VIN on the title and the VIN on the valid Oklahoma insurance to be registered here.

Wednesday morning, I got a text that was a surprise for two reasons.  First, Sarah had successfully registered our Mazda here in Oklahoma, and second, there weren't any problems.

The result:  Our Mazda is finally registered in Oklahoma even though we didn't get the new tag put on the car until Friday.  (We figured we'd run in to some sort of problem like breaking a screw or the holes not lining up with the old license plate so we didn't attempt anything tag-related on Thursday.)

Take home lesson:  If you're going to move, move at the same time as your spouse so you only have to do things like changing car insurance and registration once rather than twice.  That way the likelihood of forgetting something important like actually changing the insurance or giving them the right VIN goes down drastically.