Your question seems to be -7 +(1/8) -(-9) + (1/2) but then there is a decimal in front of the next -2 so that makes no sense unless that is a period before starting a new equation. You can simply type this beginning section into a calculator to get your answer of (21/8), but I have a feeling you just tried to copy and paste a test question and it did not format correctly in your question so is probably much more complicated than using a calculator. A better idea would be to write it in math terms instead of words, then find a common denominator so you can simplify. Writing it out in words makes it too hard for your brain to think about it in terms of math.