GI Budget LLC was founded by John Massanet Cruz, a U.S. Army Cavalry Scout who served 8 years, reached the rank of Staff Sergeant (E-6), and completed three deployments, including combat in Afghanistan in 2013. I gave the Army everything I had. What I didn’t get back was a financial education. I watched soldiers leave the service and fall apart financially. No budget. No plan. No idea how to use the GI Bill, the VA home loan, or the TSP they’d been paying into for years. Some ended up in debt. Some lost homes. Not because they were lazy or reckless, but because nobody ever taught us how money works in the civilian world. I was one of them. Today, I’m a commercial fuel driver, a full-time finance student at UMGC, and a single father building GI Budget LLC from the ground up. Not because it’s easy. Because it’s necessary. GI Budget is the resource I wish had existed the day I took off the uniform.