How long will it take her to save enough money to buy the bike?

Question

jennifer is saving money to buy a bike. The bike costs $173. She has $107 saved, and each week she adds $11 to her savings. How long will it take her to save enough money to buy the bike? 

Answer 1

We'll let x represent the number of weeks it will take to save enough money. If she saves $11 each week, then in x weeks she will save  11x dollars.

Add this to the 107 she has already saved, and at the end of 11 weeks she will have    11x + 107 dollars.

We want the amount saved to be equal to the price of the bike, so our equation is

 

11x + 107 = 173

 

In a word problem, writing the equation is usually the hardest part. Now we solve the equation.

 

Subtract 107 from both sides to get

 

11x = 66

 

Divide both sides by 11 to get

 

x = 6 weeks.

Answer 2

So this can be translated like the following:

Bike costs= 173 dollars She currently has 107. She saves 11 dollar per week to get the bike so the formula is:

173 = 107 + 11X where X is the number of weeks 

 

Step 1: bring the 107 to the other side to get 173-107 = 11X

Step 2: divide both sides by 11 to solve for X to get this (173-107 )/11 = X

Step 3: Calculate and simplify 66 / 11 = X which is the same as X= 6 

 

So the answer is it will take jennifier 6 weeks to save for the bike.