Saturday, January 19, 2008

Math in Real Life

Blackeyed Susan had scoped out two cd's she wanted at the Christian bookstore. One was $14, and one was $12. One was on sale and one not; though I don't know which one was which.

Susan had three coupons to work with. One said "25% off of one non-sale item or 10% off a sale item." One said, "$4 off a non-sale item or $2 off a sale item." The third said, "Buy one, get one 50% off." She tried three scenarios: 25% off one, with $2 off the other, $4 off the one, with 10% off the other, and, finally, full-price for one and half-off the other.

Two of the scenarios yielded a savings of $5.80, but the third would save her $6.00. So, smart girl that I have raised her to be...she used the bogo 50% coupon.

From this she learned two things: One--that, darn it, we *do* use algebra like, every day of our life, and, two, when it's HER money she is shelling out, twenty cents is enough to make "doing the math" worthwhile.

It's a good thing that the "bogo" coupon was the winner, because the $4/$2 coupon said...

2006.

1 comment :

Cindy-Still His Girl said...

That is hilarious! :) Good math lesson and good reading the fine print lesson! :)