Good morning everybody. It’s a crappy winter morning, I am on my second cup of coffee and I stayed up later than I normally do last night; so I figure this would be the perfect opportunity to start writing. As I was typing that second sentence of this blog my baby started crying, my dog wanted in, and my wife started vacuuming the living room (if you are reading this you are beautiful and I love you). All husbands around the world will understand that last part, you got to get bonus points when you can even though I still am trying to figure out how to turn them in? And just by mentioning the point system I have probably lost all of them by some hidden and archaic clause in the marriage vows. So this is pretty much the perfect start and the best place to focus on my writing, right? Yeah, I thought so too. Budgets and Beer are awesome AF. Did I just make you swear in your head reading that?  If you are not sure what AF means then you should also keep reading to learn what it means. Learning is fun!

I thought I would take this opportunity to explain a little bit about why I am writing this and what I want to get out of it. My commute to work everyday is approximately 30 minutes. That is a lot of time with just me and my windshield and a lot of things go through my mind during those boring 30 minutes everyday. My household budget, my baby, my wife, why the Flyers can not stay consistent this season, and what kind of beer I should break open when I get home (even though it is only 6:15 in the AM). I can talk to my wife, I talk to everyone about my new baby whether they care to listen or not and I can talk and read ad nauseam about Philadelphia sports. Beer and budgets are two of the things I have difficulty finding others to talk about. Most if not all of my friends are not that into either and I work with about 90% females and pretty much 100% could care less about either of those two subjects so here I am typing about it before my head explodes all over my windshield.

Some days I think “What the hell is wrong with people?, “Why are people so stupid?”, and “What were they thinking?”. Totally unproductive thoughts and things that run through my mind on an almost daily basis. Most of us think these very normal human thoughts because somebody cut them off on the highway or because the barista made their vanilla mocha caramel macchiato with one shot of vanilla instead of two. I think these thoughts when I see someone driving a brand new car they complain they cannot afford or they put that mocha caramel whatever on their maxed out credit card at 27,000% APR or some ridiculous interest rate. I have decided to take my thoughts that if said out loud would make me a total jerk and turn them into something constructive. We will talk about subjects here like; how to balance your budget while saving for your retirement and other cool financey/budgety things (yes they are new words I’ve submitted to Webster) focusing mostly on Millennials but if a Gen X or Y pops in here to read we will not mind. We won’t get into the super extreme frugality on here. I am aiming to help everyone just enough to live productive meaningful lives without having to look too much over your shoulder for that next paycheck. I hope some of my crazy ideas you find helpful and I promise there will still be beer money left over.

Oh, I almost forgot! AF means “As ‘the F-word’ ”.  It is a lot of fun to add AF onto the end of things that are cool like good beers and saving money.  I am doing my best not to swear on here.  Don’t feel bad if you did not know what it meant.  I only learned the meaning about a month ago. See learning is fun!

My Beer of the Blog is Crème Brûlée by Southern Tier Brewing Company. An imperial stout brewed with vanilla that boasts an ABV of 20 proof. Yes, proof not percent (10% if you don’t want to do the math). It is a great beer after dinner when Crème Brûlée is on the mind but you’re at home in your sweatpants and the thought of a French restaurant makes you and your checkbook shudder in fear. Cheers and welcome to Budgets and Beer!