Question

Jane is saving up to purchase her first bicycle. The new bike costs $185. Jane got $50 for her birthday and plans to put that towards the bicycle. To save the rest of the money, Jane plans to put asides an additional $15 per week until she has saved enough to purchase the bicycle. Write an equation that represents Jane’s savings towards earning her bicycle. Use w to represent the number of weeks.

Answer 1

To represent Jane's savings towards purchasing her bicycle, let's break down the components of her savings:

1. The total cost of the bicycle is $185.
2. Jane has already saved $50 from her birthday.
3. She plans to save an additional $15 per week for \( w \) weeks.

The amount she saves after \( w \) weeks can be expressed as \( 15w \). Therefore, her total savings can be represented by the equation:

\[ 50 + 15w \]

To find out when she has enough money to purchase the bicycle, we set the total savings equal to the cost of the bicycle:

\[ 50 + 15w = 185 \]

This equation shows the relationship between the weeks she saves and the total cost of the bicycle.