Question

Deborah spent $70 on food and clothes. She spent $26 more on clothes than on food. On your worksheet, solve the question and write your answer below. How much did she spend on food and how much did she spend on clothes?

Answer 1

She spent $22 on food, and $48 on clothes.

Explanation:

Let's define the variables:

C = amount of money that Deborah spent on clothes

F = amount of money that Deborah spent on food.

We know that she spent in total $70, then we have the equation:

F + C = $70

And we know that she spent $26 more on clothes than on food, then we have the equation:

C = F + $26

This means that we have a system of equations:

F + C = $70

C = F + $26

To solve these type of systems, we usually start by isolating one variable in one of the equations. Here we can see that C is already isolated in the second equation.

Now we can replace it in the first equation.

F + (F + $26) = $70

Now we can solve this for F.

2*F + $26 = $70

2*F = $70 - $26 = $44

F = $44/2 = $22

So she spent $22 on food.

Now we can use the equation:

C = F + $26

To find how much she spent on clothes, where we need to replace F by the value we found.

C = $22 + $26 = $48

She spent $48 on clothes.