Alex had a certain amount of money in his bank account. He withdrew one-sixth of the amount and then spent half of what was left. After that, he had $14 left in his account. How much money did he have in his account originally?

Question

Alex had a certain amount of money in his bank account. He withdrew one-sixth of the amount and then spent half of what was left. After that, he had $14 left in his account. How much money did he have in his account originally?

Answer 1

Let's start by using algebra to solve the problem.

Let's call the original amount of money in Alex's account "x".

If he withdrew one-sixth of the amount, then he would have had 5/6 of the original amount left:

5/6 x

Then he spent half of what was left, so he would have had 1/2 * 5/6 x = 5/12 x left:

5/12 x = 14

Now we can solve for x by multiplying both sides by the reciprocal of 5/12:

x = 14 * 12/5 = 33.6

So the original amount of money in Alex's account was $33.60.