Question

Every night when Isabella came home from work she put any change she had in her pockets into a jar. One day she wanted to know how much change she had in her jar. She noticed that she had two more nickels than twice the number of dimes, and eight fewer quarters than twice the number of nickels. If the value of the quarters was $1.60 more than four times the value of the nickels and dimes together, what was the total value of the change in Isabella's jar?

my work:
n stands for nickels
d stands for dimes
q stands for quarters

n=2d+2
nickels

q=2n-8
quarters

q=$1.60+4(n+d)
total value

I can't figure out where to start getting values and what values to get.

Answer 1

Get an equation in terms of just one of the values.

q = 2n-8 = 2(2d-2)-8

2(2d-2)-8 = 1.60 + 4(2d-2+d)

Solve for d, then n and q.