A Little Bit Richer

This series is brought to you by L&G, helping you build a future that's A Little Bit Richer.

Iona Bain: Hello,  I'm  Iona  Bain  and  welcome  back  to  A  Little  Bit  Richer,  the  podcast  helping  you  feel  more  confident  about  your  finances  one  episode  at  a  time,  brought  to  you  by  Legal  and  General.  Here's  a  question.  What  is  your  attitude  towards  money  and  where  does  it  come  from?  From  the  way  you  think  about  spending,  saving,  earning,  and  even  what  you  believe  you  deserve  financially,  it  all  comes  from  somewhere,  your  family,  your  upbringing,  the  environment  you  grew  up  in  and  all  those  little  messages  you  probably  didn't  even  realize  you  were  absorbing.  Your  attitude  towards  finances  or  your  money  script  quietly  influences  the  decisions  you're  making  right  now  and  it  ultimately  shapes  your  long- term  financial  wellbeing.  So  today  to  talk  about  all of  this,  I  am  joined  by  coach  and  author  of  Black  Girl  Finance,  Selina  Flavius.  She's  going  to  be  unpacking  the  different  money  scripts  we  all  have,  the  behaviours  they  encourage  and  how  we  can  rewrite  them.  Selina  is  someone  who  went  from  having  a  huge  fear  around  money  and  debt  to  shifting  her  attitude,  getting  her  finances  into  a  good  place  and  now  she  offers  coaching  to  help  others  thrive  financially  too.  Welcome,  Selina.

Selina Flavius: Thank  you.  Thank  you  so  much  for  having  me.

Iona Bain: So  to  kick  us  off  in  30  seconds  or  less,  can  you  talk  about  why  our  attitudes  to  money  are  so  important  and  whether  we  can  change  them  or  not?

Selina Flavius: So  I  think  it's  really  important  to  understand  your  money  scripts,  your  attitudes  to  money,  because  whether  you  think  you  can  or  you  think  you  can't  is  probably  very  true.  Our  attitudes  to  money  will  influence  how  we  spend,  how  we  save,  how  we  invest,  how  we  tackle  debt,  if  we  tackle  debt  at  all.  And  I  do  think  it  has  a  direct  impact  on  the  actions  that  we  take  on  our  financial  outcomes,  our  financial  capabilities.  So  it's  really  important  to  understand  your  money  scripts  and  attitudes  to  money  so  that  you  become  in  control.

Iona Bain: Fantastic.  You  nailed  it.  Let's  take  it  right  back  to  childhood.  What  money  lessons  and  scripts  do  we  learn  from  the  family  around  us  and  from  the  environment  that  we're  in  and  what  impact  does  that  then  have  on  our  relationship  with  money  as  adults?

Selina Flavius: When  it  comes  to  our  financial  cognizance,  there's  research  that  shows  that  from  a  really  early  age  around  the  ages  of  six  or  seven  is  when  we  start  to  sort  of  think  about  these  things  and  have  understanding  around  our  money  and  finances.  And  it  could  be  those  messages  that  you  pick  up.  If  you  grew  up  in  a  family  that  was  quite  anxious  about  money,  maybe  money  was  very  tight,  you  might  then  have  that  feeling  of  anxiety  around  money  as  an  adult.  And  it  could  be  the  opposite  if  you  grew  up  in  a  family  that  were  okay  with  money,  you  may  feel  a  little  bit  more  relaxed  about  money,  the  ability  to  obtain  money  as  well.  So  I  do  think  it's  really  important  to  analyse  our  background.  So  where  we  come  from,  where  our  mindset  comes  from  as  well  when  it  comes  to  our  finances.

Iona Bain: That  would  be  quite  shocking,  I  think,  to  a  lot  of  people  that  they  would  be  picking  this  stuff  up  when  they're  six  or  seven  years  old.  I  mean,  a  lot  of  us  would  think, " Well,  I've  not  got  money  on  my  mind  at  that  age.  I'm  just  out  playing,  living  my  best  life."

Selina Flavius: Yeah.  I  grew  up in a  household  that  didn't  speak  about  money at  all.  So  I  kind  of  had  to  navigate  my  way  and  think  about it  and  find  out  myself.  Whereas  some  people  may  have  grown  up  in  households  where  money  conversations  were  very  free,  open.  Maybe  they  were  given  some  money  to  handle  and  play  with  as  a  child  as  well  and  to  budget.  So  I  do  think  whether  you  spoke  about  it  or  whether  you  didn't,  it's  quite  good  and  useful  to  think  about  your  financial  environment  when  you  were  younger.

Iona Bain: And  you  touched  on  this  already,  but  can  we  just  tease  out  two  different  mindsets  that  might  be  particularly  helpful  if  we  want  to  understand  this  better?  The  scarcity  mindset  and  the  abundance  mindset.

Selina Flavius: If  you  do  any  research  around  money  mindset  and  there  are  loads  of  quizzes  and  tests  that  you  can  go  online  and  do  just  to  understand  yourself,  there  are  all  different  types  of,  I  guess,  descriptions  for  these  types  of  thoughts  and  feelings  around  money.  So  like  a  scarcity  mindset,  it  may  show  up  in  that  when  you  think  about  money,  it's  always  from  a  place  of  being  quite  disempowered  about  it.  And  how  that  might  play  out  in  reality  could  be  that  whenever  there's  any  financial  decision  to  be  made,  it's  made  with  a  lot  of  urgency  and  a  lot  of  panic  and  a  lot  of  fear  because  maybe  you  don't  feel  so  confident  around  your  ability  to even  make  money,  deal  with  the  problem  and so on and  so  forth.

 Or  maybe  if  you've  got  an  abundance  mindset,  like  the  example  that  I  gave  of  someone  who  maybe  grew  up in  a  household  whereby  they  know  that  if  anything  happens,  they've  maybe  got  a  trust  fund  or  a  pot  of  money  there.  I  think  it  could  even  be  going  through  a  tough  time  and  knowing  that  if  everything  was  to  fall  over,  you  can  go  and  live  at  your  mom  and  dad's  house,  for  example,  and  you'd  still  be  okay.  I  think  sometimes  that  shaped  how  we  think  and  feel  about  money and  the  decisions  that  we  make  about  it.

Iona Bain: And  this  isn't  necessarily  about  how  much  money  our  families  had  when  we  were  growing  up.  Can  this  kind  of  exercise  in  analysing  where  our  attitudes  come  from,  can  it  be  helpful  almost  to  strip  our  socioeconomic  background  out  of  it?  Because  whether  you  grew  up  wealthy  or  grew  up  poor,  it  can  affect  all  of  us  depending  on  what  exactly  went  on  in  our  childhood.

Selina Flavius: I  do  think  it  can  also  be  impacted  by  the  things  that  happen  to  us  as  we  get  a  bit  older.  So  let's  say  you've  joined  a  business  and  you've  got  some  stock  options  with them  or  they've  given  you  some  shares.  It  might  be  that  in  three  years  time  when  you  finally  get  those  shares,  if  the  company's  done  badly,  you  might  feel  like, " Okay,  well,  this  has  happened.  I've  invested  for  the  first  time."  You  might  be  put  off  from  investing  at  all  in  maybe  a  pension  or  even  in  a  stocks  and  shares ISA because  you've  had  a  bad  experience.  So  I  think  it's  all  of  these  experiences.  So  childhood,  kind  of  what  we've  experienced  around  our  parents  and  then  also  as  we  go  into  the  wide  world  and  start  working  ourselves,  things  that  happen  to  us  as  well,  they  all  can  have  an  impact  on  what  we  do  and  the  financial  decisions  that  we  make.  It's  quite  complicated,  I  think.

Iona Bain: It's  incredibly  complicated.  That's  what  makes  it  so  fascinating.  I  mean,  I've  met  people  in  my  life  who've  had  very  little  when  they're  growing  up  and  then  feel  like  they've  had  to  really  learn  about  money  and  develop  a  very  go  getting  proactive  attitude  around  money  because  they've  not  really  come  from  anything.  And  then  there  are  other  people  I've  met  who,  as  you  described  before,  had  quite  a  comfortable  upbringing,  but  that  meant  that  they  never  really  had  to  learn  how  to  be  resourceful  and  how  to  find  out  about  this  stuff.  So  then  they  tend  to  struggle  when  they  achieve  financial  independence  and  realize  they've  got  to  make  all  the  decisions  themselves.  So  it  can  definitely  be  about  not  just  your  situation,  but  also  the  lessons  that  you  were  taught  and  what  was  passed  on  to  you,  if  you  like.

Selina Flavius: Yeah,  absolutely.  As  human  beings,  we're  quite  complicated.

Iona Bain: And  do  you  find  as  well  sometimes  people  might  have  slightly  out  of  date  scripts,  they  might  have  ideas  about  what  pensions  are  like  or  what  owning  a  house  is  like  and  it  may  be  based  on  what  they  learned  about  those  topics  growing  up  and  those  things  are  not  necessarily  true  today.

Selina Flavius: Yeah,  because  obviously  the  economy  changes,  opportunities  change.  So  for  example,  the  opportunities  that  my  mom  had  that  I  have  versus  what  my  son  has,  they're  all  completely  different.  I  know  that  we  talk  about  university  fees,  we  talk  about  being  able  to  get  on  the  property  ladder  for  a  lot  of  young  people  today,  those  opportunities  are  different.  I'm  not going to say they're not  there  because  we  want  to  have  a  positive  mindset  and  figure  out  how  we  can  get  to  these  things  that  we  want  to  achieve.  With  my  son,  I've  tried  to  encourage  him  to  start  investing  as  soon  as  possible  because  the  opportunities  are  different.  A  lot  of  pensions  advice,  investment  advice,  property  advice  can  be  quite  dated  for  today's  young  people.

Iona Bain: And  what  influence  does  society  and  culture  have  on  our  attitudes  to  money?

Selina Flavius: I  think  it  has  a  massive  impact  in  terms  of  the  influences  that  we  see  on  social  media,  this  impression  that  everyone  else  is  doing  well  and  we  compare  ourselves.  When  I  was  younger,  I  compared  myself  to  my  friends  who  I  saw  over  the  summer  holidays  or  at  school.  Now  we  can  compare  ourselves  with  people  that  we  see  online  who  we  don't  know.  It  can  have  a  really  negative  impact  on  the  kind  of  messages  we  tell  ourselves.

Iona Bain: Is  there  a  gender  component  to  this  as  well?

Selina Flavius: Yeah,  money  is  spoken  about  in  the  media  to  us  women  as  being  like  secret  spenders  and  always  having  to  save  or  hide  purchases,  whereas  men,  you  invest,  you  get  on  the  stock  market  and  everything's  fine.  Even  thinking  about  childcare,  if  you're  having  a  family  together  as  well,  that  has  a  huge  impact  on  our  financial  decision  makings  because  we  don't  make  financial  decisions  in  a  vacuum.  There's  all  of  these  influences,  all  of  these  things  pulling  on  our  mindset.

Iona Bain: And  what  impact  is  the  current  cost  of  living  crisis  and  the  ongoing  economic  uncertainty  having  on  people's  attitudes  to  money?

Selina Flavius: When  you  feel  very  squeezed,  it's  normal  to  kind  of  hanker  down  and  just  think  about  today  and  not  necessarily  think  about  the  future,  or  you  feel  like  you're  unable  to  plan  for  the  future.  So  that  might  mean  feeling  a  bit  stuck.  It  might  mean  feeling  like  you  don't  have  any  spare  cash  to  even  put  into  a  pension.  I  speak  to  people  all  the  time  who  have  sometimes  taken  themselves  out  of  their  workplace  pension,  for  example,  because  they  feel  like  it's  very  tight.  We  have  to  give  ourselves  some  grace  sometimes  and  actually  sit  down  and  look  at  the  numbers  because  there  might  be  a  little  bit  to  spare  that  you  can  put  towards  building  up  an  emergency  fund  or  saving  or  investing,  but  we  have  to  remove  the  emotions  and  examine  your  money  mindset.

Iona Bain: How  can  we  unpick  how  we  really  think  and  feel  about  money?  How  can  we  strip  all  the  emotion  out,  as  you  say,  and  really  get  to  the  nub  of  how  we  formed  this  particular  attitude  to  money  as  we've  grown  up?

Selina Flavius: So  I've  prepared  some  questions  so  that  your  viewers  can  think  about  and  start  answering  these  questions  and  identifying  their  money  mindset  behaviour.

Iona Bain: Brilliant.

Selina Flavius: So  the  first  question  is,  so  what  did  money  mean  in  the  household  that  you  grew  up  in  and are you  still  living  that  out?

Iona Bain: Right.  So  identifying  maybe  how  money  was  discussed  or  how  it  wasn't  discussed  in  your  house  growing  up  and  really  trying  to  get  to  the  bottom  of  that.

Selina Flavius: Yeah,  absolutely.  I  think  it's  a  good  start.  What  were  the  thoughts  and  feelings?  Does  it  give  you  anxiety?  Does  it  make  you  feel  happy?  What  was  the  environment  like  when  it  came  to  money?

Iona Bain: Great.  That's  a  really  good  question  to  start  with, I  think.

Selina Flavius: So  the  second  question  is  around  your  emotions  about  money.  So  if  I  was  to  say to you  to  check  your  bank  account  today  now,  what  type  of  feelings  come  up  for  you?  Is  it  anxiety?  Do  you  feel  stressed?  Do  you  want  to  ignore  that  question?  Do  you  want  to  just  avoid  it  or  do  you  feel  calm  at  peace?  It's  a  regulation  check  basically.

Iona Bain: I  think  for  a  lot  of  people,  that  question  will  feel  fairly  simple  to  answer.

Selina Flavius: Question  number  three  is  around  the  fear  around  money.  So  what  problem  that  you  need  to  deal  with  regarding  your  money are  you  avoiding  right  now?

Iona Bain: Oh,  that  feels  more  difficult  to  answer  because  it  feels  like  you're  having  to  go  to  that  place  that  you've  been  avoiding  for  a  while,  but  your  advice  is  to  face  up  to  it.

Selina Flavius: Yeah.  And  I  think  whatever  we  are  avoiding  is  probably  what  we  need  to  deal  with  the  most.

Iona Bain: That's one of  the  most  unfortunate  ironies  of  life,  isn't it?

Selina Flavius: It  definitely  is.  But  if  you've  been  avoiding  it,  try  and  tackle  it  and  try  and  remove  the  emotion  from  it,  look  at  the  numbers,  write  it  down  and  just  try  and  deal  with it  as  best  as  possible.

Iona Bain: Absolutely.

Selina Flavius: So  my  final  question  is  about  habits.  So  looking  at  your  habits,  if  your  savings  habits  and  your  spending  habits  and  your  investing  habits  and  debt  habits,  let's  say,  stay  the  same  for  the  next  10  years,  what  position  will  you  end  up  in?

Iona Bain: Ooh,  so  that's  a  bit  like  being  the  ghost  of  Christmas  future  and  deciding  actually  what  I'm  doing  now,  how  is  that  going  to  pan  out  tomorrow?

Selina Flavius: Yeah,  absolutely.  If  you're  a  diligent  saver,  if  you're  a  diligent  investor,  what  does  that  look  like?  If  you  haven't  started  yet  and  if  you  continue  not  to  start,  what  does  that  look  like?  If  you are  a  person  that's  sort  of  racking  up  debt  and  that  continues  for  10  years,  where  does  that  get  you?  So  it's  all  about  identifying  the  habits  and  hopefully  it  gives  you  some  idea  about  what  maybe  you  need  to  work  on  to  put  yourself  in  a  better,  more  favourable  situation.

Iona Bain: So  we've  talked  a  little  bit  about  how  having  certain  attitudes  about  money  can  work  against  you,  but  there'll  be  people  watching  and  listening  who'll  think, " Look,  I've  managed  to  get  by  okay,  why  do  I  really  need  to  examine  my  attitudes  to  money  at  this  stage  in  my  life?  Why  does  that  really  matter?"

Selina Flavius: This  whole  topic  is  around  our  behaviours  and  I  think  in  terms  of  how  we  fare  our  financial  outcomes,  our  financial  capabilities  as  well,  it's  all  impacted  by  the  actions  that  we  take.  For  example,  I  speak  to  a  lot  of  clients  who  they're  saving  diligently,  which  is  wonderful  and  amazing.  It  feels  really  safe,  but  then  they're  not  necessarily  thinking  about  the  impact  of  inflation  on  cash.  So  this  cost  of  living  crisis  that  we  talk  about  are  buying  power  reducing  and  money  should  be  working  for  you.  Whatever  you  don't  need  for  an  emergency  fund  should  be  invested  somewhere  so that  it  can  grow  above  inflation.  So  just  from  a  very  practical  point  of  view,  you're  kind  of  missing  out  and  your  wealth  might  be  going  backwards  sometimes,  but  we  might  not  be  aware  of  that  because  we  just  feel  very  safe  with  a  mountain  of  cash  around  us.

Iona Bain: Yes.  And  then  presumably  you're  having  to  really  dig  into  why  that  person  craves  that  security  and  why  they're  scared  of  that  risk.  And  perhaps  there's  some  quite  deep  psychological  things  that are  going  on  there  that  makes  that  person  want  to  stick  to  cash.

Selina Flavius: Yeah,  absolutely.

Iona Bain: And,  Selina,  you've  had  to  also  look  at  your  attitudes  to  money  as  well.  Tell  me  about  that  and  how  you  managed  to  shift  the  way  that  you  approach  finance.

Selina Flavius: Yeah.  So  I  was  very  avoidant.  So  in  my  teenage  years,  early  20s,  probably  up  until around  30,  I  had  no  clue  how  to  save,  invest.  I  found  myself  in  a  little  bit  of  debt,  loads  of  anxiety  around  it  and  just  very  avoidant.  So  on  paper  it  looked  like  everything  was  okay.  I  owned  a  home,  managed  to get on  the  property  ladder  quite  early,  managed  to  take  care  of  my  son,  super  important,  but  in  the  midst  of  that,  there  was  some  sort  of  debts  creeping  up  and  it  took  time  for  me  to  actually  take  stock.  So  to  think  about, " Okay,  well,  why  am  I  feeling  all of  this  anxiety  around  it?  Why  am  I  avoiding  having  these  difficult  conversations  and  just  putting  something  in  place?"

 And  it  was  because  I  grew  up  in  a  household  that  didn't  speak  about  money.  You  kind  of  just  got  on  with  things  and  just  tried  to  figure  things  out  yourself.  There  was  also  a  feeling  of  like, " I  should  get  it.  People  around  me  seem  to  get  it  and  understand  it  and  seem  to  be  doing  okay.  So  why  am  I  struggling?"  So  a  bit  of  embarrassment  as  well  and  I  literally  had  to  give  myself  permission  to  take  stock  and  look  at  the  numbers  and  that  was  the  start  of  a  shift.  I'm  speaking  to  you  today  because  I  decided  to  take  control  and  then  start  learning.  So  give  myself  permission  to  learn  about  investing.

Iona Bain: It's  so  good  that  you  have  emphasized  the  fact  that  you're  still  learning.

Selina Flavius: Oh,  absolutely.

Iona Bain: Because  I  say  the  same.  If  people  describe  me  as  an  expert,  I'm  sure  you're  the  same.  You  slightly  wince  because  ultimately  we're  still  picking  up  stuff and  we're  human,  as  you  say.

Selina Flavius: Yeah.  Never  stop  learning.

Iona Bain: How  can  you  ensure  that  you  have  the  right  attitude  in  place  so  that  you  are  balancing  saving  money  and  also  spending  money  and  enjoying  yourself?

Selina Flavius: Yeah.  And  I  think  it's  such  a  good  question.  I  think  when  people  think  about  doing  their  budget,  I  think  immediately  you  think, " Okay,  I  have  to  restrict  and  I have  to  have  no  fun  whatsoever,"  but  I  do  think  we  can  allow  some  money  for  joy.  We're  all  working  so  hard.  The  world  is  crazy  right  now.  We  need  to  find  those  pockets  of  joy  and  I  think  dedicating  some  of  your  hard- earned  income  to  having  some  joy  and  it  doesn't  have  to  be  extravagant.  It  could  just  be  something  so  simple.  Whatever  you  enjoy  doing,  give  yourself  permission  to  do  that,  budget  for  it.  And  also  I  think  we  feel  like  we  must  just  have  a  budget  that  stays  the  same  all  the  time.  It  doesn't  have  to  stay  the  same.  You  can  vary  it  depending  on  what's  going  on  with  yourself.  So  for  example,  if  maybe  money  is  a  little  bit  tight,  you  might  want  to  just  pull  back  a  little  bit.  When  things  are  a  bit  better,  you  might  want  to,  again,  reinstate  the  joy.  So  I  do  think  you  can  be  really  flexible.

Iona Bain: Yeah,  totally,  totally.  And  how do  you  also  strike  the  right  balance  if  you  are  in  a  relationship  and  you  have  a  partner?  Because  in  that  situation  you're  not  making  money  decisions  in  isolation,  are  you?  You're  definitely  having  to  work  with  someone  else.

Selina Flavius: It  can  be  quite  tricky  because  you  might  be  someone  that's  a  little  bit  more  confident  about  money  and  you  might  be  working  with  someone  who  may  not  be  as  confident  with  money. And  I  do  think  doing  this  exercise  of  understanding  your  own  individual  money  mindsets  is  probably  a  good  start  and  then  having  regular  conversations.  I  think  sometimes  we  think  that  we  can  have  one  conversation  about  this  topic  with  our  partner  and  then  they'll  get  it  and  that's  it. " I've  spoken,  I've  told  you  how  I  feel.  I  told  you  what  I  want  to do,"  but  I  think  when  working  out  any  kind  of  thing  in  a  relationship,  you  might  have  to  have  multiple  conversations  before  you  get  to  a  happy  compromise.  It  might  mean  if  someone's  a  bit  more  of  an  expert  around  finances,  maybe that  they  spend  the  time  to  look  into  it.  It  might  be  trusting  their  kind  of  thoughts  and  feelings  around  it,  but  also  making  sure  that  you're  always  cognizant  of  what's  going  on  with  your  money  as  well.  I  wouldn't  say  just  defaulted  to  someone  else.

Iona Bain: Yes.  No.

Selina Flavius: Absolutely  always  have an  understanding,  be  involved  in  your  money  and  financial  decisions.

Iona Bain: Yeah,  because  in  relationships,  it  is  rarely  absolutely  equal  and 50/ 50  all  the  time.  There  are  going  to  be  times  where  the  balance  of  decision  making  might  shift  to  one  partner  rather  than  the  other.  I  think  it's  about  the  culture  that  you  have  as  well.  I'm  guessing  that's  a  big  part  of  what  you  do.  It's  about  encouraging  people  to  have  this  culture  of  talking  about  money  in  their  lives.

Selina Flavius: Yeah,  in  general.  Yeah,  absolutely.  Yes.

Iona Bain: And  finally,  whilst  people  go  away,  have  a  cup  of  tea  and  they're  waiting  for  the  kettle  to  boil,  what  is  the  one  thing  that  you  would  advise  our  viewers  and  listeners  to  think  about  if  they  want  to  change  the  script  that  they  have  around  money?

Selina Flavius: I  think  you've  got  to  go  online  and  find  a  money  script  quiz  or  test  and  just  test  yourself  and  see  what  comes  up.  I  think  that's  a  good  place  to  start.  Type  in  money  mindset,  type  in  money  habitues  as  well  so  there's  different  types  of  quizzes  that  you  can  do,  but  I  think  it's  really  interesting  stuff  because  like  I  said,  this  really  impacts  your  actions,  the  things  that  you're  going  to  go  away  and  do.  Money  is  such  an  integral  part  of  our  lives,  so  we  need  to  understand  it  and  understand  ourselves.  I

Iona Bain: Could  not  agree  more.  Thank  you  so  much,  Selina.

Selina Flavius: Thank  you.

Iona Bain: And  that  brings  us  to  the  end  of  this  episode.  We  really  hope  it's  given  you  some  food  for  thought  and  a  reason  to  think  about  your  own  money  script.  Is  there  a  change  that  maybe  you  could  make  to  encourage  those  behaviours  and  habits  that  would  serve  you  better  in  the  future?  Something  to  think  about.  Next  time  we'll  be  talking  to  Mike  Hiner  about  life  and  death  admin  and  why  we  need  to  get  it  sorted  to  protect  ourselves  and  more  importantly,  our  loved  ones.  This  podcast  is  brought  to  you  by  L&G.  If  something  that  you've  heard  in  this  episode  inspired  you  to  share  it  with  a  loved  one,  then  please  do  and  you  could  help  others  get  a  little  bit  richer  too.  You  can  keep  up  with  the  show  on  YouTube,  TikTok,  and  Instagram @legalandgeneral.  And  if  you've  got  a  question  or  a  topic  that  you  would  like  answered  on  the  show,  do  get  in  touch  on  our  socials.  We  absolutely  love  to  hear  from  you.  Until  next  time,  see  you  soon  and  thanks  for  listening.