How much did she start with?

Question

Adison earned $25 mowing her neighbors lawn. Then she loaned her friend $18. Got $50 from her grandmother for her birthday. She is has $86. How much did she have to start with?

Answer 1

Hi Paul,

Sounds like this is a basic algebra question. You'll essentially just be building an equation from each individual line:

"Adison earned $25 mowing her neighbor's lawn" = plus 25

"Then she loaned her friend $18" = minus 18

"Got $50 from her grandmother for her birthday" = plus 50

"She has $86" = the right side of the equation will be 86

"How much did she have to start with?" = this will be the variable "x" that you're trying to solve for.

In other words, your equation will look something like this:

(Money Adison started with) + ($25 for mowing lawn) - ($18 loan to friend) + ($50 from grandmother for birthday) = $86 leftover

Converting that to an algebra equation, you have the following:

x + 25 - 18 + 50 = 86

Now, all you need to do is simplify this all and solve for x. First, we'll do all the addition and subtraction on the lefthand side of the equation:

x + 57 = 86

Now, we subtract 57 from each side in order to solve for x:

x = 29

And that's all there is to it. She had $29 to start with.