Graduate Exclusive! Army Vet Gary C. Builds Savings for His Kids, Fishes the Gulf, and Feels “Tremendous Load” Lifted From His Shoulders
We interviewed Gary — Army vet, grandpa, and avid fisher — to find out about his journey and how life’s been since graduating from his Beyond Finance program last year.
- Debt Amount: $21,169
- Started: February 2024
- Graduated: April 2025
Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
I live down in South Texas — Corpus Christi — and I’m widowed. My wife passed away back in 2017. I’ve got three kids — my son is here, one daughter’s in San Antonio, and one’s up in Central Texas close to Fort Worth.
I was in the Army, and after that, I was an electrician and I worked at it 50 years before I retired. It never got boring!
I do a lot of fishing. I live right here on the Gulf — so, you get red drum, black drum, speckled trout, and sea trout. I also spend a lot of time on my computer trying to keep my brain sharp.
How did you find yourself in debt?
Just a lot of credit cards. Seemed like everybody and their brother wanted to give me a credit card.
I’d buy something here and there or splurge with four or five hundred dollars on something occasionally, but I’d spread it out across different credit cards. And their interest rates just ate me up.
But then after changing jobs over a period of time — I lost my union insurance, and my wife had cancer and later in life came up with COPD. So there were doctor bills and medicines. A lot of times I had to put her medication on a credit card.
And because of the medical problems that my wife had, it got to where it wasn’t working at all — we were paycheck-to-paycheck.
I’ve never had a savings account before. I got my bank notice the other day and I was surprised at the amount of money that I had in there.
What was your experience like with Beyond Finance?
I forget the gentleman’s name — I talked to him two or three times — but he was really helpful. He answered all my questions.
I gave him all the information he asked for — and he came up with the lower payments of — I think it was $600 a month. And I told him, “Yeah, you know, I can live with $600 a month.”
It was a big relief. I wasn’t dreading looking at my bank account, wondering how I’m going to pay off these credit cards.
When I paid off the first account, I thought, “Oh, hey, this is great. That’s one down!”
What was graduation like and what’s happened since?
Oh, that was really great. I’ve opened up a second bank account — an interest-bearing account — and now I put any extra money in there.
I’ve never had a savings account before. I got my bank notice the other day and I was surprised at the amount of money that I had in there. I was really surprised that I’ve got that much saved up!
I can go out – my son and I go almost every week to a different steakhouse and he was always the one picking up the bill. After I graduated, I’d pick up the tab. Feels good.
I can go and come as I please, go where I want, do what I want. My son’s got a good friend who bought a boat, so we’ll go out on his boat fishing. Now I’ll say, “Okay, I’ll buy the gas,” or “I’ll buy the bait,” and we split it up that way.
I’m also saving for the kids. They don’t know about it. I’m just going to surprise them one of these days — “Okay, here’s this checking account, here’s the account number, and y’all can split it three ways.”
Beyond Finance took a tremendous load off my shoulders. You gave me a good foundation to start a savings account on. The main thing I can say is just relief.
Real client compensated for a real story.