Question

- Mariah is looking at her bank account and sees that she is in debt $40. She plans to buy dinner

for several friends on Friday at $5 per meal. On Monday she earns $30.25 babysitting and
$25.75 for tutoring several younger students. On Tuesday, she cleans the apartment for her
mom and earns $11 dollars. She spends $2 of those dollars on a candy bar. How many friends
can she buy dinner for on Friday?

Answer 1

Answer: 5 friends

Note: if Mariah pays for her own meal, then it would drop to 4 friends.

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Step-by-step explanation:

Add up the amount she earns:

30.25+25.75+11 = 67

Now add up the amounts that she's either in debt or that she spends money on. Ignore the dinner portion for now.

40+2 = 42

She earns $67 total and has to spend $42, without including the dinner portion just yet. That means Mariah has 67-42 = 25 dollars left over.

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Let x be the number of $5 meals she can buy

So she can spend a total of 5x dollars here. Set this equal to 25 (the amount left over) and solve for x.

5x = 25

x = 25/5

x = 5

She can buy dinner for 5 friends. Or if Mariah is paying for herself as well, then she can buy dinner for 4 friends. It's not clear which scenario your teacher is after, but I'll assume the first scenario.