Just one of those life updates I do now and then

Hello friends!

I just have a spare moment, which I've had VERY few of lately, so I wanted to give you all a quick update! As most of you know, in October I realized that if I really wanted to achieve the great purge of our possessions before we moved, I needed to get it all listed SOON. I know from experience, it takes about a year to sell the majority of what you list on Ebay, unless you really slash prices and take a hit that way. Which, of course, I would rather not do.

So I made an assessment of about how many more items, in theory, we needed to sell to have enough savings cushion to move back to Maryland. I landed on 500 items. Then I made myself a ridiculously ambitious goal to get all of those items listed by the end of November. Note that about the most I have EVER listed on Ebay is 200 items in a month and that was working very hard with pretty easy listings.

I also had a third potential problem: getting Dade to part with enough additional things to make 500. He had already worked his way through a lot of his stuff and 500 is no small number!

Well, now we're halfway through November and I have listed 350 items. I think we're going to make it. I wish I'd had more energy to chronicle it, as it was rather interesting. We went through one loaded bin of 1980s toys about as old as I am that I don't remember EVER seeing before in our 26 years together...

Will it be enough to move? I don't know, it depends how much people actually buy, but my best chance is to have as much listed as possible for as long a time as possible. It is kind of working--as the holiday shopping season draws close, I'm starting to sell so much that it's hard to keep up with packing it all. I packed 40 items last week, which means I spent about 14 hours last week JUST for packing, shipping and post office trips. It feels like a scary time to plan big things, so I have one foot in the planning stages and the other one in the moment.

Adding to the anxiety is the situation with health insurance in the US. This is something I'm asked about on the channel every time I talk about money...what do I do about the cost of health insurance for self employed people? Well, I lived in Maryland when I first was able to get health insurance through the ACA, and I definitely had some sticker shock when I moved to North Carolina and was paying about $100 more, but I've still been able to afford it...until 2026. My insurance jumped $200 for next year, and meanwhile I looked at the Maryland estimate website and...insurance there is still barely more than I was paying in 2019! Honestly that was jaw-dropping to me after the climbing costs in North Carolina. Health insurance here is now more than my mortgage, and that's for nearly the worst plan with a $7000 deductible. The only (slightly) cheaper plan basically doesn't cover any local doctors at all, AKA the "ghost network". I just can't do it this year.

Why yes, I AM feeling pretty saucy about all this, but I do talk about money for artists a lot so I wanted to give you all the update, like it or not. Plus, I just wanted to give you the update on why I have been sort of absent online for the most part. I've been SO mired in this, and the last month has felt like many months, but the end is in sight and hopefully...I can get back "home" and have health insurance for 2027! Asheville HAS been good to me in a lot of ways. I just took out the trash and looked at the beautiful clear mountain sky, full of so many visible constellations. A place so beautiful is impossible to dislike, I'm just ready to move on.

I'm also SO so ready to get back to writing and creating, and the exciting thing is that after all this crazy hard work, I'll have a nice breather before I have to think about packing and realty and all of THOSE horrors. I have lots of interesting topics planned for the channel and my characters are invading my brain.

And that's the update! I'll have a members-only video tomorrow and of course my Sunday usual!

--Lidiya