Suppose you are starting an office-cleaning service. You have spent $315. To clean an office, you use $4 worth of supplies. You charge $25 per office. How many offices must you clean to break even?

Question

Suppose you are starting an office-cleaning service. You have spent $315. To clean an office, you use $4 worth of supplies. You charge $25 per office. How many offices must you clean to break even?

I don't understand this. I just made an equation, 4x + 25y = 315.

Answer 1

Let's do it this way.

$25 - 4 = $21. This is your profit for one office.

$315 / $21 = 15

You'd have to clean 15 offices to break even.

Answer 2

To figure out how many offices you must clean to break even, we need to find the point where your total income is equal to your total expenses. In this case, your total income is the product of the number of offices cleaned (x) and the amount charged per office ($25), and your total expenses are the sum of the initial cost ($315) and the cost of supplies per office ($4), multiplied by the number of offices cleaned (x).

So, your equation should be:

Total Income = Total Expenses

25x = 315 + 4x

Now, let's solve for x:

25x - 4x = 315

21x = 315

Divide both sides by 21:

x = 315 / 21

x = 15

Therefore, you need to clean 15 offices to break even.