Question

Todd wants to buy a new video game for $43.31. He has $55.50. The sales tax is 8.5% of the total purchase. Does Todd have enough money to purchase the game?

Answer 1

yes

Explanation:

We can estimate* that the total price including tax of the game will be less than ...

$43.31 +10% of 43.31 = $43.31 +4.33 = $47.61

Todd easily has enough to pay for the game, including tax.

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You can work this more exactly a couple of ways.

1. Price + tax = 1.085×$43.31 = $46.99 . . . less than Todd's budget

2. Most Todd can afford: $55.50/1.085 = $51.15 . . . more than the game price

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* For estimating purposes, we like to use numbers that are easy to compute with. 10% is one such number, as it only requires moving the decimal point.