HelloFresh offers a meal subscription program where you pay $32 per month plus an initial sign-up fee for meals delivered to your door. For 6 months it costs you $240.

Question

A. Define your variables and write an equation in slope-intercept form for the above scenario.

(Find x and y)

B. If you spend $656, how many months did you have your HelloFresh subscription for?

Answer 1

Hello, Anastasia,

We want an equation in the form of y = mx + b, where m is the slope, or rate of increase of y for a change in x. y will be the total cost, x is the number of months, and b is what the cost is when x = 0. In our case, this is the signup fee. At 0 months, the start is b, the cost to join.

The slope is 32, since each month costs $32. So if there were no signup fee, we could calculate the total cost for x months by multiplying x times 32.

We need to find b, the signup fee. We can do that since we know that the total spent for 6 months was $240. Just enter that into our equation:

$240 = 32(6) + b

b = $240 - $192 = $48.

The signup fee, b, is $48.

y = 32x + 48 [ the 32 has units of $/month, and the unit for 48 is $]

If we spent $656, we can solve for x to find months:

$656 = (32$/month)x + $48

32x = (656-48)

32x = 608

x = 19 months

I left out the units in the calculations, but you should keep them in and confirm how they cancel to only $.

I hope this helps,

Bob