I'm About To Have My 6th Baby And Don't Have A Lot Of Money

Summary

---

Podcast Summary

Podcast: The Ramsey Show Highlights
Episode: "I'm About To Have My 6th Baby And Don't Have A Lot Of Money"
Date: November 30, 2025
Hosts: Dave Ramsey & Ken Coleman
Caller: Kim

---

Episode Overview

In this high-energy episode, Dave Ramsey and Ken Coleman take a call from Kim, a soon-to-be mother of six struggling with space, transportation, and financial challenges. The hosts provide practical, tough-love advice on debt management, creative car solutions, and the necessity for a disciplined financial approach. The tone is candid, empathetic, and injected with humor, with both hosts commending Kim’s hustle while urging systemic change in her family’s money habits.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Family Background and Immediate Concerns

• Kim shares she’s expecting her sixth child (00:15) and describes her living situation:

  • 1,400 sq. ft., 2-bedroom house, with the husband using one room as an office (01:17–01:38).
  • Only one car, a 7-seater leased through her husband’s work (01:17).

• Humorous banter about family size and vasectomy:

  • Ken Coleman: “Would you like me to get on the phone with your husband and tell him to leave you alone?” (00:38)
  • Caller Kim: “If you wouldn’t mind, that’d be lovely.” (00:44)
  • Dave Ramsey: “You love each other. What can you say?” (00:58)

2. Financial Picture

• Household income: Husband makes ~$75k/year (02:25), Kim brings in about $2,000/month from dog grooming, $1,000/month from dog boarding, plus a little from dog walking (03:52).
• Monthly take-home: About $6,800 (Dave’s calculation, 05:39).
• Mortgage: $1,450/month (05:50).
• Debt: About $30,000 in consumer debt, with ~$13,000 in collections (04:41–04:57).
  • Ken Coleman: “You guys are making enough money… you don’t need to be spending money on credit cards. You guys are just being ridiculously careless.” (05:10–05:14)

3. Budgeting and Margin

• Despite the challenges, Kim says they have about $2,000 left each month after necessities (05:59).
  • Dave Ramsey: “You don't have a lot of margin for error here.” (05:26)
• Core advice: Focus on living within means and stop using credit while building savings for essential needs.

4. Transportation Challenge

• Main issue: Need a bigger vehicle to fit entire family, options would require a $700/month payment if they don't have money down (04:16).
• Their current leased vehicle costs $275/month (including insurance, etc.), but similar deals are not available anymore; replacing it would cost closer to $450/month (07:07).
• Dave Ramsey: "You can't turn around and go into debt on another vehicle." (06:05)
• Ken Coleman: “Guess what we’re not doing. We’re not going to see anybody. We aren’t going to go do anything until we get this thing right size.” (06:39)

5. Practical Solutions and Tough Love

• Advice on car: Save up as much as possible and buy a used, large-capacity vehicle (07:41–08:19).
  • Ken Coleman: “Go find an old Suburban, something in the early 2000s that’s got enough seats... get a $5,000 Suburban and find a good mechanic.” (08:38–08:47)
• Leverage the community: Puts emphasis on finding help within local community or church (08:48–09:16).
  • Ken Coleman: “People will feel for you... Share the problem and go to the local community. Say help us.” (09:10)
• Accountability for husband: Both hosts emphasize he must step up, especially since he's responsible for a significant portion of the credit card debt (09:16–09:28).
  • Ken Coleman: “You’re the one that went out and did this on credit cards. Now, you need to go out and not sleep and work and pay this off. Go get yourself a car. My goodness. Step up. You got six kids.” (09:28)

---

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Family Size and Humor:
  • Ken Coleman: “You are a hero.” (00:22)
  • Dave Ramsey: “Six kids and 60 dogs. I know you would make a great sitcom!” (03:33)
• On Income and Responsibility:
  • Ken Coleman: “You guys are making enough money... you guys don’t need to be spending money on credit cards. You’re just being ridiculously careless.” (05:10)
• On Creative Solutions:
  • Ken Coleman: “My point is you have to get creative and innovative when you are in this situation. And people will feel for [you] ... say help us.” (08:48–09:10)
• On Stepping Up:
  • Ken Coleman: “You’re the one that went out and did this on credit cards... Step up. You got six kids.” (09:28)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:15 – Kim shares family situation (6th child on the way)
• 01:17 – Describing car and home space issues
• 03:52 – Detailing household side income
• 04:41 – Full scope of current debt
• 05:39 – Household net monthly income and budget
• 06:05 – Ramsey cautions against new vehicle debt
• 06:39 – Coleman’s “no visiting” rule while solving car crisis
• 07:41 – Focus shifts to $2,000 lost margin over six years
• 08:38 – Advice to find a used Suburban via local community
• 09:16 – Hosts urge accountability, especially for husband

---

Summary & Action Steps Suggested

• Immediate:

  • Avoid new debt, especially for a car.
  • Maximize and protect current margin by budgeting strictly.
  • Seek community help or find a reliable, used large vehicle.

• Ongoing:

  • Address and stop careless spending, particularly on credit cards.
  • Husband to take more ownership (both in finances and practical support).
  • Leverage side hustles creatively but within physical and logistical limits.

---

The episode shines for its honest, humorous, and practical approach to real-life family financial struggles, delivering both compassion and a firm push toward personal responsibility and creative problem-solving.

Transcript

[Announcer]

Brought to you by chm. A budget friendly faith based alternative to health insurance. Chministries.org budget I am expecting a sixth baby soon.

[Dave Ramsey]

Wait a minute.

[Ken Coleman]

Did you say sixth as in the number six?

[Caller (Kim)]

That's the one.

[Ken Coleman]

Wow, you are a hero.

[Dave Ramsey]

I know.

[Caller (Kim)]

That's right, Wonder Woman.

[Ken Coleman]

What's going to be the age range?

[Caller (Kim)]

We have an almost 12 year old down to a 1 year old.

[Ken Coleman]

My holy moly. Would you like me to get on the phone with your husband and tell him to leave you alone?

[Caller (Kim)]

I mean, if you wouldn't mind, that'd be lovely.

[Ken Coleman]

Tell him to rewind the show today. Hey, pal, leave her alone. She needs a break.

[Caller (Kim)]

Well, in his defense, he was gearing up to get a vasectomy and we just didn't get that far.

[Dave Ramsey]

So you love each other. What can you say?

[Ken Coleman]

Have we made that appointment though? Is that on the books?

[Caller (Kim)]

Oh, I wish, I wish. I don't know what he's doing. So.

[Dave Ramsey]

Kim, you're a good one.

[Ken Coleman]

You are. All right, I'm sorry. I'm having a little fun here. I always represent the American people. I say what they're thinking. Okay, how can we help today?

[Caller (Kim)]

Right, so two of my biggest concerns right now is the fact that we lease a car through my husband's work and we only have the one car and it is a seven seater, so not going to fit six kids. My other issue is the fact that we're essentially in a two bedroom house and running out of space very quickly.

[Dave Ramsey]

You think you're in a two bedroom house?

[Caller (Kim)]

Yeah, well, my husband, he works from home and so he uses one of the pseudo bedrooms as an office. So my thought is we can plunk him as quickly as possible into the basement where we anticipate getting at least two bedrooms put up and his office built down there. But there's a lot of work that has to get done to the basement before, like rooms and things can be added down there.

[Dave Ramsey]

How many square feet is this place?

[Caller (Kim)]

It's only 1400. It's not a lot. It's. It's manageable.

[Ken Coleman]

Do we have. Okay, hold on, slow down. Do we have the money to be able to make these? Okay, so we have. I thought that was the case. So here's the deal. There is no expansion of the house for him. He's going to a place called a coffee shop.

[Dave Ramsey]

What. What kind of work does he do and what does he earn?

[Caller (Kim)]

So he, he makes about 75 a year. And the problem is, like sometimes he's on the phones and stuff. Like that. So, like, he has to be in, like, a quiet secluded area.

[Ken Coleman]

There's all kinds of work.

[Dave Ramsey]

Is it.

[Ken Coleman]

There's the back alley for.

[Caller (Kim)]

For Volkswagen, so.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, what surface?

[Caller (Kim)]

It's like a customer service for Volkswagen.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. How long has he been doing that for?

[Caller (Kim)]

About six or so years now.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, and do you do any work other than working from the home? Do you do anything outside to get a check?

[Ken Coleman]

How could you?

[Dave Ramsey]

I don't think so. I'm just asking.

[Caller (Kim)]

I fill as much space as I can when I. When my husband's not working, I'm walking dogs. I'm grooming dogs. We do boarding at the house just to add some extra income.

[Dave Ramsey]

You do boarding at the house where there's no bedrooms for the children to sleep.

[Ken Coleman]

I have a great idea. I have a great idea. For you guys to make more money, you guys need to be on the phone with some reality show producer, because I feel like. I feel like your life is a reality show waiting to happen.

[Caller (Kim)]

Oh, man. I told my husband we would make a really great sitcom.

[Dave Ramsey]

I know you would. Six kids and 60 dogs. Yeah.

[Ken Coleman]

I'm exhausted already. Just talking, man.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, well, I like your hustle spirit. Like, I like the fact that you're like, hey, I'm gonna get money doing what I can. I love pets, so invite them over. What do you. I mean, on a good month, what do you make from your side hustling?

[Caller (Kim)]

So from grooming, I do about 2000. With boarding, I do about a thousand. Walks are harder for me just because it's more of me out of the house. So usually it's like, maybe a couple hundred bucks a month.

[Ken Coleman]

You're pregnant with your sire? Yes. Stop walking the dogs. Okay, so what is the core question you called with today? Because now we have a pretty good idea what's going on.

[Caller (Kim)]

I'm trying to systematically. I feel like the car is going to be the biggest thing as far as what we need to do first. But, I mean, I looked at places that could offer us a car that's going to fit everyone, and they're looking at, like. I mean, if we put no money down, we're up to, like, $700 car payment a month. Right now we pay 275 for this lease, and I'm like, I don't know how to find a car that's going to fit everyone with, like, zero money. I mean, we're on baby step two right now, so I don't know.

[Dave Ramsey]

What other debt do you have?

[Caller (Kim)]

It's about 30,000 in consumers so there's like 8,000 on one card that my husband has that went to collections. We have another 5,000 that went to collections that he has.

[Dave Ramsey]

And what was this money spent on? Is this just you guys surviving?

[Caller (Kim)]

No, it was that my husband spent it on.

[Dave Ramsey]

On what?

[Ken Coleman]

On what?

[Caller (Kim)]

On garbage.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Ken Coleman]

Yeah, because. Hold on, I want to pause for a second here.

[Caller (Kim)]

Sorry.

[Ken Coleman]

Okay. You guys are making enough money.

[Caller (Kim)]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ken Coleman]

Between his 75 and let's call it your 24 that you guys don't need to be spending money on credit cards. So, like, you need that money to live. You guys are just being ridiculously careless.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. And truthfully, you don't. I mean, Ken is right. You're doing all right. But you don't have a lot of margin for error here. I just kind of calculated. So what's he bringing home, like 4800amonth?

[Caller (Kim)]

Yeah. Give or take. Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

And yours is two. So you're 6,800amonth, which doesn't sound bad, but you got. There's se. There's eight of you guys, so that. That goes fast. What are you paying? What do you pay for mortgage?

[Caller (Kim)]

1450.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, that's fine. And do you have like an actual budget? Could you tell me today, like, here's the margin at the end of every.

[Caller (Kim)]

Month that we have, we have like a. About $2,000 margin after all of, like the necessities.

[Dave Ramsey]

Great, great. So the key to this is you're going to have to save up to get something because you already know that that's the problem. Right. So you can't turn around and go into debt on another vehicle. How often are all of you piling in the car to all go to the same place?

[Caller (Kim)]

So because I'm predominantly a stay at home mom, I'm the chauffeur, so, like, the kids are with me good chunk of the day, except the older two who are in school. But because it's also our only car, if we go see family, if we go do anything, we're taking everybody.

[Ken Coleman]

Well, guess what? Guess what we're not doing. We're not going to see anybody. We aren't going to go do anything until we get this thing right size.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, I think so.

[Ken Coleman]

Everybody's coming to you. My goodness. I think you got a good case to make.

[Dave Ramsey]

I think so, too. Now, this lease, when is it up?

[Caller (Kim)]

I mean, it's up any minute. So like, we could return it today and they'd be happy with us. But the only problem is, so right now we're paying 275amonth on the car.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller (Kim)]

Which is all fine. And well, that includes insurance tags every year, all of it. And they're not no longer making the car that we have with the three row seats. So we can't get that same deal. If we return it and get another car, we'd be looking at paying closer to 450 on the next lease.

[Dave Ramsey]

Understood. How, how, how? Because here's the biggest problem is this. And I know it's easy to focus on like the, the micro problems like the lease. The biggest problem is you've had $2,000 of margin for the last five, six years that he's been working on Volkswagen, but you don't have any money saved.

[Caller (Kim)]

So I can tell you what happened with that. Well, doordash.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, but it doesn't.

[Ken Coleman]

I'm saying it doesn't matter at this point.

[Dave Ramsey]

That is, the point is that that money has gone to things that are not paying off debt, not saving up for the future. So today, this is the thing that's on fire. You guys have got to save up, start saving that money. And in the meantime, if you can extend this car, if that's possible, I would say do it because you got to have something to drive and you don't have anything. You don't have any money. So that would be my first thing is see what you can save up. What can, what can $8,000 get you? What can $7,000 get you? And you're going to have a beater for a while after you get out of this lease, because that's what you can afford. Yeah.

[Ken Coleman]

Does your husband, is he mechanical by any chance?

[Caller (Kim)]

Minorly. Yeah.

[Ken Coleman]

Yeah, I get it. Me too. I can barely put gas in a car. But here's. I'm going to get creative if I'm You. Right. You know what I'm doing? I'm finding somebody in their local community, their church, who's like really good at working on Chevy's or Ford, and they live in the Detroit area.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Ken Coleman]

And I'm going to go find me an old Suburban, you know, something in the early 2000. No, seriously, that's got, that's got enough. Enough seats.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Ken Coleman]

And we're going to.

[Dave Ramsey]

We're going to.

[Ken Coleman]

We're going to go get a $5,000 suburban and find a good mechanic who isn't going to rip us off, who will give us. My point is you have to get creative and innovative when you are in this situation. And people will feel for. If you go, hey, we've been dumb, we've got some debt we're paying off. We got a sick kid on the way. Husband's gonna go get snipped soon. We're solving that problem. We need. We need this. And we share the problem and we go to the local community. Whatever this we say help us.

[Caller (Kim)]

Yeah.

[Ken Coleman]

And if you have a good church.

[Dave Ramsey]

Home let put the word out.

[Ken Coleman]

You don't just make excuses and go, well, we got to go down there. And I know you're not but I gotta tell you, I'd have hubs watch this back on YouTube. And I'm not knocking you, my friend, but you got to step up.

[Dave Ramsey]

You must.

[Ken Coleman]

You're the one that went out and did this on credit cards. Now, you need to go out and not sleep and work and pay this off. Go get yourself a car. My goodness. Step up. You got six kids.

[Announcer]

Christian Healthcare Ministries can save your family hundreds of dollars on healthcare every month. Learn [e-mail] budget.