Lacey has $20 to spend on school supplies. Notebooks are $2.50, pens are $.50, and pencils are $.12. Lacey needs 7 notebooks for her classes and also wants to get 4 pens. How many pencils can she buy?

1 Answer
Nov 5, 2015

Lacey can purchase 4 pencils.

Explanation:

Start out with your $20 Lacey is allowed to spend.

Lacey needs 7 notebooks, so you can multiply 7 by $2.50, to get $17.50 for notebooks. Subtract from $20, and you have $2.50 left over to spend. Next, Lacey want's 4 pens. A pen is $0.50, and you can multiply the cost of 1 pen by 4, to get $2.00. Subtract from your remaining $2.50. You now have $0.50 to spend on pencils.

The next step will solve your question. Take your remaining $0.50 and divide it by $0.12. An easy way to get rid of the decimals is to multiply each number by 10 to slide the decimal to the write 2 places, and at the end of the number. 50/12 comes out to be 4 1/6.

Since you cannot buy 1/6 of a pencil, you will round this answer down to 4. Lacey can buy 4 pencils from the store.