Robert buys cheese and lemons at the store.

He pays a total of $24.36.
He pays a total of $5.31 for the cheese.
He buys 5 bags of lemons that each cost the same amount.

Write and solve an equation which can be used to determine xx, how much each bag of lemons costs.

1 answer

To solve this problem, we first need to identify the variables and establish relationships based on the information given.

Let \( x \) be the cost of each bag of lemons.

Robert buys 5 bags of lemons, thus the total cost for lemons can be written as: \[ 5x \]

Robert pays a total of $24.36 for both cheese and lemons. We know that he paid $5.31 for the cheese. Therefore, the equation relating the total cost and the costs of cheese and lemons is: \[ 5.31 + 5x = 24.36 \]

Now, we can solve for \( x \):

  1. Subtract the cost of the cheese from the total amount: \[ 5x = 24.36 - 5.31 \] \[ 5x = 19.05 \]

  2. Divide both sides by 5 to find \( x \): \[ x = \frac{19.05}{5} \] \[ x = 3.81 \]

Thus, each bag of lemons costs $3.81.