under her cell phone plan, Piper plays a flat cost of $38.50 per month and $5 per gigabyte, or part of a gigabyte (for example, if she used 2.3 GB she would have to pay for 3 whole gigabytes) she wants to keep her bill under $60 per month. What is her maximum whole number of gigabytes of data she can use while staying within her budget.
Let's assume that Piper uses x number of gigabytes of data in a month.
According to the given information, she plays a flat cost of $38.50 per month and $5 per gigabyte, or part of a gigabyte.
The cost for the data usage would be 5 * x.
The total bill including the flat cost and data usage cost would be 38.50 + 5 * x.
We know that Piper wants to keep her bill under $60 per month.
So, 38.50 + 5 * x ≤ 60.
Subtracting 38.50 from both sides:
5 * x ≤ 60 - 38.50,
5 * x ≤ 21.50.
Dividing both sides by 5:
x ≤ 21.50/5,
x ≤ 4.30.
Since x has to be a whole number, the maximum whole number of gigabytes Piper can use while staying within her budget is 4.