Help please

Question

A vendor sells hot dogs and bags of potato chips. A customer buys 2 hot dogs and 2 bags of potato chips for $6.50. Another customer buys 3 hot dogs and 2 bags of potato chips for $8.50. Find the cost of each item. 

Answer 1

If you want to set this up as two equations:

let h be the price of a hot dog

let b be the price of a bag of chips

 

2h + 2b = 6.50

3h + 2b = 8.50

 

subtract the top equation from the bottom equation and you get

h = 2.00

 

plug that back into the first equation

2(2.00) + 2b = 6.50

2b = 2.50

b = 1.25