January Goal Recap

Recap of general 2011 goals:

• debt-free
• focus on photography
• BF for 6 months at least
• be near my pre-pregnancy shape by the end of the year

January Goals Update:
Budgeting/Debt-free
Budgeting is going well despite the unknowns. We are looking into a few small projects we want to undertake in the next year before completing the budget. Some ideas include installing a privacy fence, maximizing investments, and overpaying on the car loan.

After a few rounds with Chase and my own research, I have determined that we can get our MIP (mortgage insurance premium AKA PMI for non-FHA mortgages) waived in a few months by meeting the required 78% loan ratio. Feel free to skip this part if you're not interested in finances...basically one of the advantages of an FHA loan is not needing the usual 15-20% down payment on a mortgage. To counter the risk, banks require "insurance", which is added on to the mortgage payment. The major risk to them is if the value of the house goes down and you default on the loan, they lose money. It is roughly 6-8% of a portion of the loan in addition to the interest the loan already charges. Part of the federal regulation on the loan requires the bank to waive this fee when requested after the loan ratio reaches 78%; once 22% of the loan is paid. We've been overpaying our mortgage, so we will be reaching that point in a few months. Yay!

Photography
The photography goal is coming along. I've decided to use Picasa as my general photo storage/online backup and use Flickr to display more of my artistic work. Hopefully I'll have everything converted in the next few months. There are a LOT of pictures on Flickr and I'm not sure how I want to remedy removing the clutter just yet.

I refreshed my laptop to fix some issues I have been having and I'm in the process of reinstalling software. Eye-fi SD card is pretty cool. If you recall from the January Goals post, DH bought this for me for Christmas. It allows me to keep my camera and card in my studio and have the images automatically sent to my laptop or even online. All it needs is a wifi connection! Pretty cool!

Breastfeeding
BFing goals are lagging. I am only half way through my book and haven't decided on a Pediatrician yet. Bad Randi! I really need to stop dragging my feet on this! I still have a few days left in January and I'm going on leave soon, so I still have a chance, lol.

Pre-pregnancy Shape/Nutrition
I'm trying and somewhat failing/succeeding in the nutrition lately. Too many sweets around! My hunger seems much more out of control lately and I am wondering if it related to the increase in sugar consumption. The past week we have been pretty good about staying home instead of going out to eat. That helps both the financial and nutrition goals. I gained 3 pounds in 1 week and I'm afraid to see what the scale says at this week's appointment. I just hope I don't cross the 150 threshold, or I might just cry.