Why Financial Literacy Apps Are Becoming Essential Products

Financial literacy has moved from being a nice to have skill to a critical life requirement. Rising living costs, complex financial products, digital payments, easy access to credit, and economic uncertainty have created a strong need for tools that help people understand money in simple, practical ways. This shift has fueled rapid growth in financial literacy apps that educate users on budgeting, saving, debt management, investing basics, and long-term financial planning.

A financial literacy app is not just an education app and not just a finance app. It sits at the intersection of edtech, fintech, behavioral psychology, and data-driven personalization. This combination makes it highly valuable, but also more complex and expensive to build than a standard content or calculator-based application.

This article follows a deep, EEAT-compliant approach and focuses on real development cost drivers, feature complexity, timelines, and long-term scalability considerations, rather than surface-level estimates.

This is Part 1 of a four-part series. Part 1 explains what a financial literacy app really is, why these apps are different from traditional finance tools, the market opportunity behind them, and the foundational decisions that define development cost and timeline.

What Is a Financial Literacy App Really

A financial literacy app is a digital platform designed to teach users how money works in real life and help them apply that knowledge through daily actions. Unlike pure finance apps that focus only on transactions or account management, financial literacy apps focus on understanding, behavior change, and habit formation.

These apps typically combine educational content, interactive tools, simulations, progress tracking, and personalized insights. The goal is not just to show numbers, but to explain why those numbers matter and how users can improve their financial outcomes over time.

From a technical perspective, this means the app must support content delivery, user progress tracking, data analysis, personalization, and often financial calculations, all within a user-friendly and engaging experience.

Why Financial Literacy Apps Are Harder to Build Than They Appear

At first glance, a financial literacy app may look like a collection of articles, videos, and calculators. In reality, the most successful apps go much deeper.

They must simplify complex financial concepts without losing accuracy. They must adapt content based on user age, income, goals, and financial behavior. They must motivate users to return regularly and take action. They must handle sensitive financial information responsibly, even if they do not connect directly to bank accounts.

This combination of education, personalization, and trust significantly increases development complexity and cost.

Market Demand and Business Opportunity

Global awareness around financial well-being has increased dramatically in recent years. Schools, employers, governments, and individuals are actively seeking tools that improve money management skills.

Financial literacy apps are used by students learning basics, young professionals managing income for the first time, families planning budgets, and even retirees navigating savings and investments. This broad audience makes the market large and diverse, but it also means the app must support multiple learning paths and user personas.

From a business perspective, this creates opportunities for subscription models, institutional licensing, employer benefits programs, and partnerships with financial service providers.

Financial Literacy App vs Traditional Finance Apps

It is important to distinguish financial literacy apps from budgeting apps or banking apps.

Traditional finance apps focus on tracking transactions, balances, or payments. Financial literacy apps focus on understanding, decision-making, and long-term behavior improvement. While some overlap exists, the core value proposition is education and empowerment rather than account management.

This difference directly affects feature selection, UX design, and development cost.

Core User Groups and Their Needs

A financial literacy app typically serves multiple user segments.

Individuals want simple explanations, practical tools, and guidance tailored to their situation. Students need structured learning paths and fundamentals. Working professionals want budgeting, savings, and debt strategies. Institutions such as schools or employers want dashboards, reporting, and content management.

Designing a system that serves all these groups without becoming bloated is one of the biggest early challenges.

The Role of Behavior Change and Gamification

Financial knowledge alone is not enough. Users must change habits.

Successful financial literacy apps use behavioral design techniques such as goal setting, progress visualization, reminders, rewards, and gamification. These features increase engagement but also add logic, data tracking, and notification systems that raise development cost.

Behavior-driven features are often underestimated during planning, leading to scope creep later.

Content Strategy as a Cost Driver

Content is the backbone of a financial literacy app.

High-quality, accurate, and localized content requires subject matter expertise, regular updates, and sometimes regulatory review. Supporting multiple content formats such as articles, videos, quizzes, and simulations increases both development and ongoing operational cost.

Poor content quality undermines trust and retention, making content investment unavoidable.

Trust, Privacy, and Data Sensitivity

Even if the app does not connect to bank accounts, users often input sensitive financial information such as income, expenses, debts, and goals.

This requires strong data protection practices, clear privacy controls, and transparent communication. Building trust features into the app increases development effort but is essential for adoption and long-term success.

MVP vs Full-Scale Financial Literacy Platform

Many teams fail by trying to build a comprehensive finance education platform in the first release.

A realistic MVP focuses on a narrow audience and a limited set of core topics, such as budgeting and savings, delivered through simple tools and content. Advanced features like personalized learning paths, simulations, analytics, and institutional dashboards are added gradually.

This phased approach helps control cost and validate demand before scaling.

Foundational Decisions That Define Cost and Timeline

Several early decisions have long-term impact on both cost and development timeline.

Choosing mobile-only versus web plus mobile
Deciding static content versus interactive tools
Supporting single user journeys versus multiple personas
Planning for individual users only or institutional clients

Once users and content grow, changing these decisions becomes expensive.

Why Experience Matters in Financial Literacy App Development

Financial literacy apps sit in a sensitive domain where accuracy, clarity, trust, and engagement must coexist. Teams without experience in fintech or edtech often underestimate the complexity involved.

This is where experienced partners like Abbacus Technologies add real value. By combining expertise in scalable app development, user-centric design, and data-driven systems, Abbacus Technologies helps businesses build financial literacy apps that are engaging, reliable, and cost-efficient over the long term.

The feature set of a financial literacy app is the single biggest driver of development cost and delivery timeline. While the idea of teaching people about money sounds simple, turning that goal into an engaging, trustworthy, and scalable digital product requires a carefully designed combination of educational content, interactive tools, personalization logic, and behavior-focused engagement systems. Every feature added increases not only initial development effort but also long-term maintenance, content updates, and infrastructure usage.

At the foundation of any financial literacy app is user onboarding and profiling. Unlike generic apps, financial literacy platforms must understand who the user is before delivering value. Age group, income range, financial goals, existing debts, spending habits, and risk tolerance often shape the learning journey. Building onboarding flows that collect this information without overwhelming users requires thoughtful UX design and backend logic. From a cost perspective, personalization at this early stage increases development effort but significantly improves retention and perceived value.

Educational content delivery is the core feature of the platform. This includes articles, short lessons, videos, infographics, and explainers that break down complex financial concepts into simple language. Supporting multiple content formats requires content management systems, media storage, and rendering logic across devices. If the app targets different regions or age groups, content localization and updates further increase cost. However, high-quality and regularly updated content is essential for trust, especially in finance-related applications.

Interactive learning modules add another layer of complexity. Quizzes, assessments, scenario-based questions, and simulations help users test understanding rather than passively consume content. These features require rule engines, scoring logic, progress tracking, and feedback mechanisms. While interactive modules significantly improve learning outcomes and engagement, they also extend development timelines because they involve both frontend interaction design and backend state management.

Budgeting and expense awareness tools are common in financial literacy apps, even when the app is not a full budgeting product. Simple budget planners, expense categorization tools, and spending awareness dashboards help users apply what they learn. These features require calculation logic, data storage, and sometimes manual or automated data input flows. Even basic budgeting tools increase complexity because they must be accurate, intuitive, and flexible enough for different financial situations.

Savings goal tracking is another high-impact feature that directly connects education with action. Users set goals such as emergency funds, travel savings, or major purchases, and the app helps them track progress over time. This requires goal logic, timeline calculations, progress visualization, and reminder systems. Although technically straightforward, savings tracking features require careful UX and notification design to motivate users without creating fatigue, which adds iteration time during development.

Debt education and repayment guidance features are increasingly important. These include explanations of interest, minimum payments, repayment strategies, and the long-term impact of debt. Some apps include simple calculators that show how different repayment approaches affect timelines and total interest. These tools must be mathematically accurate and clearly explained, which increases testing and validation effort but is critical for user trust.

Personalized recommendations are a defining feature of more advanced financial literacy apps. Based on user behavior, progress, and goals, the app may suggest lessons, tools, or actions. Building recommendation logic requires data analysis, rule engines, or even basic machine learning models. While personalization significantly improves engagement, it adds backend complexity and increases development cost, especially if recommendations evolve dynamically over time.

Progress tracking and learning dashboards play a major role in retention. Users want to see what they have learned, what remains, and how their financial habits are improving. Dashboards aggregate data from content consumption, quizzes, goals, and tools. Designing clear and motivating dashboards requires both data aggregation logic and visual design effort. These features often undergo multiple iterations before they feel intuitive, extending timelines.

Gamification and engagement features are often underestimated cost drivers. Badges, streaks, milestones, challenges, and rewards are powerful motivators, especially for younger users. However, each gamification element introduces additional logic, tracking, and notification triggers. Poorly implemented gamification feels superficial, while well-designed systems require careful planning and testing, increasing development effort.

Notifications and reminders are essential for habit formation. These include reminders to complete lessons, review budgets, update expenses, or check progress toward goals. Notification systems involve scheduling logic, user preference management, and integration with mobile and email channels. At scale, notifications become a significant operational component that must be managed carefully to avoid user drop-off.

User accounts, authentication, and profile management are standard SaaS features but take on added importance in financial literacy apps due to data sensitivity. Secure login, password management, and optional biometric support increase development scope. Even without bank integrations, handling financial data responsibly requires strong security practices that add time and cost.

Admin panels and content management tools are critical but often overlooked during early planning. Educators, financial experts, or internal teams need the ability to create, update, and retire content, manage quizzes, monitor user engagement, and review analytics. These internal tools do not generate direct revenue but are essential for scaling content and maintaining quality. Their development can account for a significant portion of backend effort.

Feature scope directly impacts both cost and timeline. A focused MVP may include onboarding, core educational content, simple quizzes, and basic budgeting tools. A more mature platform adds personalization, gamification, advanced tools, analytics, and institutional dashboards. Trying to include everything at once almost always leads to delays and budget overruns.

This is why experienced product planning matters. Abbacus Technologies helps businesses define the right feature roadmap for financial literacy apps by aligning educational goals, user engagement, and technical feasibility. With experience in scalable app development and user-centric design, Abbacus Technologies ensures that features are built in the right order, keeping development cost and timelines under control while delivering real user value.

The technical architecture and technology stack of a financial literacy app play a decisive role in determining development cost, delivery timeline, performance, scalability, and long-term maintainability. While the app may appear content-focused on the surface, successful financial literacy platforms are built on robust backend systems that support personalization, progress tracking, analytics, security, and continuous content evolution. Poor architectural choices early on often result in slow performance, limited scalability, and rising costs as the user base grows.

At a high level, a financial literacy app consists of four tightly connected layers: the frontend experience layer, the backend application layer, the data and analytics layer, and the infrastructure and operations layer. Each layer must be designed to support education, engagement, and trust simultaneously, which is why architecture planning is one of the most important phases of the project.

The frontend layer defines how users interact with the app and directly impacts adoption and retention. Financial literacy apps must present complex concepts in a clean, simple, and non-intimidating way. This requires thoughtful UI design, smooth navigation, and responsive performance across devices. Mobile-first design is common because users often engage with financial education in short sessions. However, supporting both mobile and web platforms increases development scope and testing effort. Frontend complexity grows further when features such as dashboards, progress visualization, quizzes, and interactive tools are introduced, each of which adds design and engineering cost.

The backend application layer is where most of the functional intelligence lives. This layer manages user accounts, onboarding profiles, content delivery logic, quiz scoring, budgeting calculations, savings goals, notifications, and personalization rules. Unlike static content apps, financial literacy platforms must dynamically adapt content and recommendations based on user behavior and data. This requires well-structured APIs, business logic services, and rule engines that can evolve over time without breaking existing functionality. Backend complexity directly influences development timeline and future feature flexibility.

Data management is a major architectural consideration. Financial literacy apps store a wide range of data including user profiles, learning progress, quiz results, budgets, goals, and engagement history. This data must be structured in a way that supports fast retrieval, accurate calculations, and meaningful insights. Poor data modeling leads to slow dashboards and limits the ability to introduce personalization later. Designing a scalable and flexible data layer upfront adds cost initially but prevents expensive refactoring as the platform grows.

Personalization engines significantly increase both architectural complexity and user value. Even basic personalization requires analyzing user inputs, behavior patterns, and progress to recommend relevant content or actions. These systems may start as rule-based logic but often evolve toward data-driven or machine learning-based recommendations. Each step toward deeper personalization increases backend processing requirements and development effort, but it also improves engagement and long-term retention, which is critical for financial education outcomes.

Analytics architecture is another key cost driver. Platform owners need visibility into how users engage with content, where they drop off, which lessons are effective, and how habits change over time. Analytics dashboards require data aggregation, reporting pipelines, and visualization logic. Running analytics directly on core transactional systems increases load and cost, so well-designed platforms separate analytics processing into dedicated pipelines. This separation improves performance but adds architectural and implementation effort.

Security and privacy architecture are especially important in financial literacy apps, even when no direct bank integrations exist. Users often share sensitive personal and financial information such as income ranges, expenses, debts, and savings goals. This requires strong encryption, access control, secure authentication, and clear data handling policies. Implementing these safeguards adds development time and cost, but they are essential for user trust and compliance readiness, especially if the app is used by institutions or employers.

Cloud infrastructure choices directly affect both scalability and cost predictability. Financial literacy apps often experience variable usage patterns, with spikes during onboarding campaigns or institutional rollouts. Cloud environments allow elastic scaling, but without proper controls, costs can rise faster than revenue. Thoughtful infrastructure design includes autoscaling rules, caching strategies, and performance optimization to balance responsiveness with cost efficiency. Infrastructure planning is not just a technical task, but a financial one.

Integration capabilities also influence architecture and cost. Some financial literacy apps integrate with external tools such as payment providers, employer systems, or learning management platforms. Even optional integrations require secure APIs, data validation, and monitoring. While integrations expand market reach, they should be introduced gradually to avoid overcomplicating early versions of the app.

Operational tooling is often underestimated during planning. Admin dashboards, content management systems, user support tools, and monitoring systems are essential for running the platform day to day. These tools do not directly serve end users, but they reduce operational friction, support content updates, and enable data-driven improvements. Their development adds to backend scope and timeline but is critical for long-term sustainability.

Scalability planning is where many financial literacy apps fail. Early success can lead to rapid user growth, which stresses systems that were not designed for scale. Load management, efficient queries, and optimized APIs ensure that growth does not degrade performance or inflate costs. Retrofitting scalability later is far more expensive than designing for it from the beginning.

This is where experienced technical execution becomes a major advantage. Abbacus Technologies brings expertise in building scalable, secure, and user-centric fintech and edtech platforms. By designing modular architectures, efficient data models, and cost-aware cloud systems, Abbacus Technologies helps organizations build financial literacy apps that perform reliably, scale smoothly, and stay within realistic budget and timeline expectations.

The total cost to build a financial literacy app is shaped by a combination of feature scope, technical depth, content strategy, security requirements, and long-term maintenance planning. Unlike simple education apps, financial literacy platforms must balance accuracy, engagement, personalization, and trust, which naturally increases both development effort and delivery timelines. Understanding how these cost components evolve across stages helps teams plan realistically and avoid budget overruns.

At the earliest stage, a minimum viable product focuses on a narrow audience and a limited learning outcome. This version typically includes user onboarding, basic profiling, core educational content, simple quizzes, progress tracking, and lightweight dashboards. The goal is to validate demand, test engagement, and refine content tone rather than to deliver a complete financial education ecosystem. Even at this level, costs are higher than typical content apps because of personalization logic, data storage, and security considerations. However, a well-scoped MVP keeps timelines manageable and creates a foundation for expansion.

A mid-level financial literacy app expands into interactive tools such as budgeting planners, savings goal tracking, debt calculators, notifications, and early personalization engines. At this stage, development cost increases because features begin to interact with each other. Content must adapt to user behavior, dashboards must aggregate data across modules, and notification systems must respect user preferences. Timelines extend as more testing and iteration are required to ensure clarity and accuracy, especially for financial calculations that directly affect user trust.

A full-scale financial literacy platform supports advanced personalization, gamification, analytics dashboards, institutional access, and content management tools for educators or administrators. This version may also include employer or school dashboards, reporting, and role-based access. Development cost at this stage reflects not only feature complexity but also scalability, performance optimization, and operational tooling. These platforms are designed for long-term growth and recurring revenue, but they require disciplined roadmap planning to remain financially sustainable.

Development timelines vary based on scope and execution strategy. A focused MVP can be delivered relatively quickly, while a mature platform typically evolves over multiple phases. Successful teams treat timelines as iterative cycles rather than fixed deadlines, allowing feedback from real users to guide feature prioritization. Rushing advanced features before validating engagement often leads to wasted effort and higher rework costs later.

Ongoing maintenance and operational costs are frequently underestimated. Content updates are continuous because financial rules, best practices, and economic conditions change. Infrastructure costs grow as user activity increases, especially for analytics, notifications, and personalization engines. Security updates, monitoring, and customer support add recurring expenses that must be included in long-term budgeting. Over time, these operational costs can exceed initial development investment if not planned carefully.

Monetization strategy plays a direct role in cost recovery and sustainability. Common approaches include subscription plans for individuals, licensing for schools or employers, premium features for advanced tools, and partnerships with financial institutions. Each model influences product design and development cost. For example, institutional licensing requires reporting and admin dashboards, while subscriptions require billing systems and usage tracking. Aligning monetization with user value ensures that revenue growth keeps pace with platform costs.

Risk management is another important consideration. Financial literacy apps operate in a sensitive domain where incorrect guidance can damage trust. Clear disclaimers, content review processes, and collaboration with subject matter experts reduce this risk but add to development and operational effort. Investing in accuracy and transparency early protects the platform’s reputation and reduces long-term liability.

Cost control best practices include starting with a narrow focus, prioritizing the most impactful learning outcomes, and adding features gradually based on usage data. Reusable components, modular architecture, and cloud cost monitoring help keep expenses predictable. Separating content updates from core application logic also reduces friction and speeds up iteration.

This is where experienced execution makes a tangible difference. Teams that understand both fintech sensitivity and edtech engagement are better equipped to balance cost, timeline, and user value. Organizations often work with experienced partners such as Abbacus Technologies</a> to design scalable architectures, define realistic roadmaps, and deliver financial literacy apps that meet user needs without unnecessary complexity.

In summary, the cost to build a financial literacy app cannot be captured by a single figure. It is the result of feature depth, personalization goals, content strategy, technical architecture, and long-term maintenance planning. Teams that adopt a phased approach, invest in trust and clarity, and align development with real user outcomes are far more likely to deliver platforms that educate effectively and scale sustainably.

Building a financial literacy app is a strategic, long-term product investment, not a simple educational project. These apps operate at the intersection of education, finance, and behavior change, which makes them more complex and costly to develop than standard content or utility apps. The true cost is shaped by feature depth, personalization requirements, content quality, technical architecture, and ongoing maintenance rather than just initial development effort.

At the core, a financial literacy app is designed to help users understand money and change financial behavior, not just consume information. This requires a combination of educational content, interactive learning modules, practical tools such as budgeting and savings planners, and continuous feedback through progress tracking and recommendations. Each of these elements adds to development scope and timeline but is essential for meaningful user outcomes.

Feature selection is the biggest cost driver. Basic features like onboarding, content delivery, and quizzes are relatively straightforward, but personalization, goal tracking, calculators, dashboards, notifications, and gamification significantly increase complexity. Advanced platforms that support institutions, analytics, and content management systems require even more development effort. Poor feature planning often leads to scope creep and delayed launches.

Technical architecture directly influences both cost and scalability. Financial literacy apps rely on robust backend systems for user profiling, personalization logic, data storage, analytics, and security. Designing these systems correctly from the beginning prevents expensive refactoring later. Cloud infrastructure adds flexibility but must be managed carefully to keep operational costs under control as the user base grows.

Development timelines vary based on scope. A focused MVP can be delivered faster by concentrating on a narrow audience and limited learning outcomes. More mature platforms evolve through multiple phases, adding features based on user feedback and engagement data. Treating development as an iterative process rather than a one-time build helps manage risk and budget.

Ongoing operational costs are often underestimated. Content must be updated regularly to remain accurate and relevant. Infrastructure costs increase with analytics, notifications, and personalization engines. Security updates, monitoring, and user support add recurring expenses. Over time, these costs can exceed the initial development investment if not planned properly.

Monetization strategy plays a crucial role in sustainability. Subscription models, institutional licensing, premium features, and partnerships each influence product design and cost structure. Aligning monetization with user value ensures that revenue growth keeps pace with development and operational expenses.

Accuracy and trust are critical success factors. Financial literacy apps deal with sensitive topics and personal data, so clear communication, strong privacy controls, and expert-reviewed content are essential. Investing in these areas increases upfront cost but protects long-term credibility and user retention.

This is where experienced execution matters. Abbacus Technologies helps organizations build financial literacy apps with a balanced approach to education, technology, and cost efficiency. By defining realistic roadmaps, scalable architectures, and user-centric features, Abbacus Technologies supports the development of platforms that educate effectively while remaining financially sustainable.

In conclusion, the cost to build a financial literacy app cannot be defined by a single number. It is the result of thoughtful feature planning, robust architecture, quality content, and long-term operational strategy. Teams that adopt a phased approach and prioritize real user impact are far more likely to deliver successful and scalable financial literacy platforms.

Developing a financial literacy app is a mission-driven yet technically demanding endeavor. Unlike entertainment or generic education apps, financial literacy platforms directly influence how users manage money, make decisions, and shape long-term financial outcomes. Because of this responsibility, the cost, timeline, and design considerations are naturally higher and more complex. The success of such an app depends not only on how well it is built, but on how responsibly, clearly, and sustainably it delivers value.

At its foundation, a financial literacy app aims to translate complex financial concepts into practical, everyday understanding. This includes budgeting, saving, debt management, basic investing principles, financial planning, and habit formation. Achieving this requires far more than static lessons. It requires interactive tools, personalized guidance, progress tracking, and ongoing engagement mechanisms that encourage users to apply what they learn in real life.

Feature depth is the primary driver of development cost. Basic features such as onboarding, educational content, and quizzes form the starting point, but real user impact comes from advanced features like budgeting planners, savings goal tracking, debt calculators, personalized recommendations, dashboards, and reminders. Each added feature increases engineering complexity, testing requirements, and long-term maintenance. Platforms that also serve schools, employers, or institutions must support admin panels, reporting, and role-based access, which further expands scope and cost.

Technical architecture plays a crucial role in both timeline and scalability. Financial literacy apps are data-driven systems that rely on backend logic for personalization, calculations, analytics, and security. Poor architectural decisions early on often result in slow performance, limited flexibility, and expensive rework later. Well-designed platforms use modular architectures, scalable cloud infrastructure, and clean data models so that new features can be added without disrupting existing users.

Development timelines vary widely depending on ambition. A focused MVP targeting a specific audience and limited financial topics can be built relatively quickly. However, a comprehensive financial literacy platform evolves over multiple phases, with features added incrementally based on real user behavior and feedback. Teams that treat development as an iterative journey rather than a single launch are better positioned to control costs and deliver meaningful improvements over time.

Ongoing operational costs are a critical but often overlooked factor. Financial content must be reviewed and updated regularly as economic conditions, regulations, and best practices change. Infrastructure costs grow with user activity, especially for analytics, notifications, and personalization engines. Security maintenance, monitoring, and customer support add recurring expenses that must be planned from the start. Over the lifespan of the app, these costs often exceed the initial build cost.

Monetization strategy is tightly linked to sustainability. Subscription models for individuals, licensing for schools or employers, premium tools, and partnerships with financial institutions are common approaches. Each model influences product design and development effort. For example, institutional licensing requires dashboards and reporting, while subscriptions require billing systems and usage tracking. Aligning monetization with genuine user value is essential to maintaining trust while ensuring financial viability.

Trust and accuracy are non-negotiable. Financial literacy apps deal with sensitive personal data and life-impacting guidance. Clear disclaimers, expert-reviewed content, strong privacy controls, and transparent communication are essential. While these elements increase development and operational cost, they protect the platform from reputational damage and build long-term user loyalty.

A common reason financial literacy apps fail is overambition at launch. Trying to cover every financial topic, user type, and feature set in the first version often leads to delays, budget overruns, and diluted user experience. Successful platforms start small, focus on one or two core problems, and expand thoughtfully as trust and engagement grow.

This is where experienced planning and execution make a decisive difference. Abbacus Technologies supports organizations in building financial literacy apps by aligning educational goals, user engagement, and technical feasibility. With a strong focus on scalable architecture, realistic roadmaps, and cost efficiency, Abbacus Technologies helps teams avoid common pitfalls and build platforms that educate effectively while remaining sustainable.

In final perspective, the cost to build a financial literacy app is not a fixed number but the outcome of feature choices, architectural discipline, content quality, security requirements, and long-term vision. Teams that approach this space with patience, responsibility, and a phased development mindset are far more likely to create apps that genuinely improve financial understanding and scale successfully over time.