Answer:
$110.
Step-by-step explanation:
Let x be the cost of item that Carmen purchased from departmental store.
We are told that Carmen has $30 in store bucks and a 25% discount coupon for a local department store. We are asked to find the cost of Carmen's purchase so that after her store bucks and discount are applied, her total is no more than $60 before sales tax.
As the $30 store bucks are applied before the 25% discount is applied, so we need to find x such that x-30 minus 25% of (x-30) should be less than or equal to 60. We can represent this information in an equation as:

Therefore, Carmen should make purchases at-most for $110 so that her total is no more than $60 before, sales tax.