Here is how ten thousand becomes sixty-one thousand four hundred and twenty-eight.

The original ten thousand did not sit in a savings account.

For the first fifteen years she rolled it in certificates of deposit, and the 1990s and the early 2000s were a completely different world for a saver than the one that came afterward.

She was getting five and six per cent in 1995 and 1996 and a bit under five for most of the decade after.

From about 2009 it was essentially nothing for fourteen years, and then something again at the end.