Your budgie is under a year old, I'd say around 9-10 months judging by how far back the baring on it's forehead is. As far as the sex it's most likely make, though when they are under a year sometimes it's hard to tell. General budgie sexing rules go like this:
Dark Blue or Dark Purple w/no white rings around each nostril= MALE
Light Tan, Light Brown, Dark Brown, or All White= FEMALE
Dark Blue or Purple WITH White Rings Around Each Nostril = FEMALE
Pink= Can go either way up until a year old; under a year it can be either sex, over a year it is male if it stays pink, if it turns white, tan, or brown it's female.
The photos look like your budgie had a pink cere that went to a solid blue cere, so that would be MALE, but in one photo it does look like it has white rings around each nostril. You'll have to wait another 2-3 months, until all the black barring is gone from the forehead to know for sure. At that point if the cere is solid blue it's a male, if the white rings are still there around each nostril at that point it's a female.
My guess is, since it looks like it started out with a pink cere when young and then it turned blue, that it's probably a male and that those white rings will disappear soon. If not you have a female. The blue/purple cere with white rings is the toughest to sex, most people don't know about the rings and automatically think male, but it all depends on the age.
If you got your budgie to bond with you then DO NOT get another budgie, as #1 there is no guarantee that they will like each other and if they hated each other you'll have two birds you have to keep separate, and #2 if they do bond closely they both will probably want nothing to do with you anymore, as they'd rather bond with their own kind. I bred both English and American budgies for 20+ years and I turned a couple of pet budgies into breeders because that happened. I currently have 7 English x American cross budgies that I bred and hand-raised myself from 2 weeks old; they are now about a year old and are all completely hand tamed, fully flighted, and loving, affectionate birds! They are every bit as loving and affectionate as my larger parrots, and I love them to bits! They make great pets and companions. They do talk well, the males tend to talk better than females though I've had a few females that picked up speech pretty well. In general though the males are the talkers. My first budgie was an English budgie named Keety, I got him when I was 6 years old, he was bred and hand-raised by my mom, and he lived to be 18 years old! He died when I was 24, and I was never closer to any other pet...
"Dance like nobody's watching..."
And very sorry to hear about your other friend passing 
