Dormant Account

An account that's sleeping. No activity. Dormant. Like a bear in winter, a cicada for 7 years around Princeton, and most Congresspeople.

Your parents open up a savings account for you when you're 12 years old. They make you deposit your birthday money in there every year. Once you go to college, you forget all about it.

Fast forward 30 years. You're helping your mom clean out the attic and you find your old bank book. You check out the account online. No activity, except for payment of interest, in decades. Dormant account.

But at least now you have a few hundred bucks to take Mom out for a nice dinner. Or get the attic professionally cleaned.