Question

Talia earns $15 an hour at her after-school job. She works 40 hours each month. Talia pays $75 each month for her cell phone, and she will save 80% of her remaining earnings for college. How much will she have saved for college after 2 years?

Answer 1

$10080

Explanation:

We can first find how much Talie earns any month by multiplying her pay per hour and the number of hours she works each month:

15 * 40 = $600/month.

Since she has to pay $75 each month for her phone bill, we subtract this from 600 to see how much she has each month after this payment:

600 - 75 = $525.

Now, we multiply 80% by this number to see how much Talia saves for college each month:

0.80 * 525 = 420

Since we know that she saves for two years and neither her pay per hour, nor her working hours per month, nor the amount she deducts each month, nor the amount she saves for college ever changes, we can simply multiply 420 by 24 to find how much she saves after 2 years (remember that 12 months is 1 year so 24 months is 2 years:

420 * 24 = $10080

A simpler equation plugging everything in and letting x represent the exact month and S represent the total amount saved for college is:

`S =0.80(15*40)-75)x\\S=0.80(600-75)x\\S=0.80(525)x\\S=420x`

Then, if you were to plug in 24 for x, you'd still get $10080.