To find out how many pasta dinners Julie bought, we can start by calculating how much she spent on pasta dinners.
- Total spent on dinners: $142
- Spent on chicken dinners: $77
Now, we can find out how much she spent on pasta dinners:
\[ \text{Amount spent on pasta} = \text{Total spent} - \text{Spent on chicken} \] \[ \text{Amount spent on pasta} = 142 - 77 = 65 \]
Now that we know Julie spent $65 on pasta dinners and each pasta dinner costs $5, we can find the number of pasta dinners by dividing the total amount spent on pasta by the cost per pasta dinner:
\[ \text{Number of pasta dinners} = \frac{\text{Amount spent on pasta}}{\text{Cost per pasta dinner}} = \frac{65}{5} = 13 \]
Thus, Julie bought 13 pasta dinners.