Question

Under her cell phone plan, Ava pays a flat cost of $58 per month and $4 per gigabyte. She wants to keep her bill at $62.40 per month. How many gigabytes of data can she use while staying within her budget?

Answer 1

To determine how many gigabytes of data Ava can use while staying within her budget of $62.40 per month, we start by setting up the equation based on her cell phone plan.

Ava's total cost for the month is calculated using the formula:

\[
\text{Total Cost} = \text{Flat Cost} + (\text{Cost per GB} \times \text{Number of GBs})
\]

For Ava's plan:

- **Flat Cost** = $58
- **Cost per GB** = $4
- **Total Cost** = $62.40

We can substitute these values into the equation:

\[
62.40 = 58 + (4 \times \text{Number of GBs})
\]

To isolate the term involving the number of gigabytes, we subtract the flat cost from both sides:

\[
62.40 - 58 = 4 \times \text{Number of GBs}
\]

This simplifies to:

\[
4.40 = 4 \times \text{Number of GBs}
\]

Next, we solve for the number of gigabytes by dividing both sides by 4:

\[
\text{Number of GBs} = \frac{4.40}{4} = 1.1
\]

Since gigabytes must typically be a whole number in cell phone plans, Ava can use at most **1 gigabyte** of data while staying within her budget.

To verify:

If Ava uses 1 GB of data, the total cost would be:

\[
\text{Total Cost} = 58 + (4 \times 1) = 58 + 4 = 62
\]

If she were to use 2 GB of data, the cost would be:

\[
\text{Total Cost} = 58 + (4 \times 2) = 58 + 8 = 66
\]

So, the usage of 2 GB exceeds her budget.

Therefore, the maximum number of gigabytes Ava can use while staying within her budget of $62.40 is **1 GB**.