Question

celeste wants to have her hair cut and permed and also go to lunch. she knows she will need 59$. the perm cost twice as much as her haircut and she needs 5$ for lunch. how much does the perm cost

Answer 1

Let's first start off with an equation to represent Celeste's budget:
$h + p + l = 59$
Where:
'h' is the money in dollars that she needs to get her hair cut
'p' is the money in dollars that she needs to get her hair permed
'l' is the money in dollars that she needs for lunch

Now let's simplify this equation using the information that was given:
$l = 5$ *This must be true since it is told that she needs $5 for lunch
$0.5p = h$ *This is because the perm costs twice as much as the hair cut

Our new/updated equation is:
$0.5p + p + 5 = 59$

This is much easier to solve, let's rearrange and solve for 'p':
$0.5p + p = 59 - 5$
$1.5p = 54$
$p = 36$

Therefore the perm costs $36

I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any further questions.