Question

Chelsea is budgeting for her trip to the mall. She does not want to spend any more than $140. If she wants to buy a dress that costs $28.50 and some shirts that cost $20.75 each, how many shirts can she buy? Use the inequality to help solve the problem.

Answer 1

To figure out how many shirts Chelsea can buy while staying within her budget, we can set up an inequality.

Let \( x \) be the number of shirts she wants to buy. The cost of the dress is $28.50, and each shirt costs $20.75. We can express the total amount spent with the following inequality:

\[
28.50 + 20.75x \leq 140
\]

Now, we will solve this inequality step by step.

1. Subtract the cost of the dress from both sides:

\[
20.75x \leq 140 - 28.50
\]

Calculating the right side:

\[
140 - 28.50 = 111.50
\]

So the inequality simplifies to:

\[
20.75x \leq 111.50
\]

2. Now, divide both sides by 20.75 to solve for \( x \):

\[
x \leq \frac{111.50}{20.75}
\]

Calculating the right side:

\[
\frac{111.50}{20.75} \approx 5.37
\]

Since \( x \) must be a whole number (she can only buy whole shirts), we take the greatest whole number that is less than or equal to 5.37, which is 5.

Therefore, Chelsea can buy a maximum of **5 shirts** while staying within her budget of $140.