Question

You and your friend are saving for a vacation. You start with the same amount and save for the same number of weeks. You save $75 per week, and your friend saves $50 per week. When vacation time comes, you have $950, and your friend has $800. How much did you start with, and for how many weeks did you save?

Answer 1

They both started with 500 dollars and saved for 6 weeks.

Step-by-step explanation:

We can observe that the difference in the amount of money saved per week is 25 dollars. (you save 75 dollars and your friend saves 50 dollars)

When vacation time comes, you have 950 dollars and your friend has 800. There is a difference of 150 dollars. Therefore we have to divide the difference of amount per week by the total difference to find how many weeks have passed:

150 / 25 = 6

Therefore, when vacation time has arrived, there have been 6 weeks since you and your friend started to save.

1. Now, 6 weeks saving $75 per week would give you $450 dollars, but if you finish with $950 dollars, you'd have to subtract these amounts to see how much you started with.

950 - 450 = 500.

Therefore, you started with $500 dollars.

1. On the other hand, your friend saved $50 dollars per week for 6 weeks, so she saved a total of $300. If she finished with 800 dollars then she started with:

800 - 300 = 500.

Therefore, she started with $500 dollars.