Happiness Project: May Goals

I posted about my version of The Happiness Project last week, and since it is almost May 1st (do you feel like time is flying by too?) I decided to outline my goals for May and how I plan to achieve them. As you know I plan on focusing on two goals each month, starting May with two goals and adding two more to the list in June. I'll keep adding more goals each month until I am actively striving to achieve all the goals on my list!

The two goals I want to focus on for May are two of the five most important goals on the list! I wanted to choose goals that would focus on setting myself up for moving into our new apartment in June, so I narrowed it down to:

• PAY OFF DEBTS
• GIVE 100% AT WORK

These will help me to ready myself for the expenses of move in and the first month of rent/bills. No money won't buy you happiness, but managing your money now will set you up for future happiness instead of future stress.

PAY OFF DEBTS
Little known fact about me, I have a lot in debt. At least I think it's a lot, when I told my mom my total amount owed she laughed and told me she wished that was the extent of her debts. Even if it seems like a small amount to others, $1,180.47 is a lot of money for me. These are debts that don't include anything I owe to school. 

This little bit of debt has been haunting me for the last two years of my life. I have been ignoring it, acting like it wasn't there, and wishing it would disappear, but obviously none of those "strategies" were lowering my debts at all.

I've already made one $200.00 payment today towards lowering this debt, this money came straight out of my checking account and was very very hard to say goodbye to. It will be a struggle to keep setting aside money to feed these bills, but in the end it will all be paid off. I know I want to pay off this debt before I have to start paying off school loans!

GIVE 100% AT WORK
Giving 100% at work ties in with paying off debts. So many times I have taken the easy way out at work and asked for low amounts of hours per week. My goal for May is to up my availability to work more hours, and to take on extra shifts when I can. Even if I'd rather be watching TV in my pajamas on the weekends. Giving 100% also mean opening the door to promotions and pay raises in the future.

Do you have any tips on paying down debts to share? Any tips on doing your best at work even on your "bad days"? I'd love to hear them (: