Beer & Personal Finance

12th December 2019 Team CF Life

It’s been 345 days since I had my last beer (or any alcoholic beverage for that matter). Just 20 more days to go before I’m allowed the holy beverage once again 🙂 Despite the year going remarkably smooth and not having missed a beer too often, I did find some similarities between beer & personal finance. Let me elaborate.

Beer & Personal Finance – it’s all good!

It’s all about beer and money

Deprivation is good

I’ve talked about deprivation before and still believe it’s a key topic for personal finance (and, as it happens, to drinking beer too). Most people are afraid to test their limits & boundaries. But it’s just such a good thing to find out where you boundaries are for many aspects of your life! It’s only when you cross these boundaries and start to feel deprived that you really know what the minimum is you feel comfortable with. Once you crossed that limit and get back to the limit, you will notice you can do with very little. For personal finance purposes, this really helps save tones of money, have more to invest and get financially independent sooner.

And with beer this limit is actually…….not sure if I should actually say this out loud……. zero. Yes, I’ve certainly missed drinking a beer a few times in the past 11,5 months (and I might again in the next two weeks with all the fun times ahead), but I can now say with certainly that I can easily do without.

Beer & Personal Finance – Limits are good!

Quality over quantity

Does this now mean that I will stop drinking all together in 2020? Nope. I already have a sizeable collection of quality beers at my disposal 🙂 Does it mean that I will change my beer drinking habit? Absolutely! I’d already given up “regular” beer for quite some time and plan to drink even fewer beers going forward. If I do damage to my liver and brain cells, it might as well be with beer that’s actually worth it, but with moderation!

Same as with beers, personal finance works well if you apply the quality over quantity attitude. I don’t think I have to reiterate that it’s better to buy a few quality products and/or services than than buying crap in bulk. It works from a minimalism perspective, financial perspective and environmental perspective. In short, wins all around. Strange that most people have not figured this out by now?! Guess they should have a beer with friends who know their finances.

It’s personal!

In the previous section I noted that I have build up a nice collection of quality beers (many triples, abbey beers, speciality beers and more), which I did over the past year (both gifts and purchases). But some, including my favourite beer snob (her words!), will disagree. Taste in beer is personal, same as everything with money. Personal finance is simply very personal. It’s important to keep this mind, no two people will live and budget the same way.

Too much is not good

Too much beer is not good for you. Despite the headaches, other bodily damage and potential cleaning, it’s also not very good for your bank account. Especially not if you got out to get said beer. It’s even worse if you make it really good quality craft/artisan beer!

Personal finance is exactly the same. Too much personal finance is toxic. You have to focus on it, but you can easily go overboard and make your life more complicated than it needs to be. Yes, you do have to test your limits as noted above, but your journey to better personal finance (and financial independence) should be as fun as the time after you’ve reached your (financial) goals.