You are choosing between two different cell phone plans.

Question

You are choosing between two different cell phone plans. The first plan charges a rate of 19 cents per minute. The second plan charges a monthly fee of $49.95 plus 9 cents per minute. How many minutes would you have to use in a month in order for the second plan to be preferable? Round up to the nearest whole minute.

Answer 1

Let "m" be the number of minutes you use in a month.

The first plan would cost 0.19 times "m" or, as we write in Algebra, 0.19m

The second plan would cost 49.95 + 0.09m.

To find the point at which both plans cost the same, you would set these equal to each other:

0.19m = 49.95 + 0.09m then subtract "0.09m" from both sides to get:

0.10m = 49.95 now divide both sides by "0,10" to get:

m = 499.5 minutes

You are interested in when the second plan costs less, so for m = 500 minutes and higher, the second plan is a better deal. You could write this as m > 500 minutes