Question

A cell phone plan cost $27.70 per month for 500 minutes of talk time. It cost an additional $0.08 per minute for each minute over 500 minutes. To get email access, it cost 30% of the price for 500 minutes of talk time. Your bill, which includes email, is the same each month for 9 months. The total cost for all 9 months is $367.29. Write and solve an equation to find the number of minutes of talk time you use each month.

Answer 1

567 minutes each month.

Explanation:

Let x be the number of minutes of talk time used each month.

The cost for talk time beyond 500 minutes is $0.08 * (x - 500)

The cost for email is $27.70 * 0.3 = $8.31

The total monthly cost is $27.70 + $0.08 * (x - 500) + $8.31 = $35.99

The total cost for 9 months is $35.99 * 9 = $323.91

So we can set up the equation:

$27.70 + $0.08 * (x - 500) + $8.31 * 9 = $367.29

Solving for x, we get:

x = 567

So the number of minutes of talk time used each month is 567 minutes.