Budgeting money and cash flow is one of the most important math skills to practice on a regular basis, even for elementary school age students. Luckily, there are numerous daily opportunities to practice money math! This week’s word problem challenge requires use of all the foundational math skills: addition and subtraction, multiplication, division, and even fractions...all rolled into one fun challenge!

Go ahead and dive in to this week’s word problem. 

Question: Siri spent a quarter of her babysitting money on a new pair of sunglasses. If she makes $9.50 per hour and babysat for 8 hours, how much money did she have left after buying the sunglasses?

Take your time working it out, no need to rush. When you're ready, look below for the solution.

Solution: Siri worked for 8 hours earning $9.50/hour for a total of 8 × $9.50 = $76.00. She spent a quarter of that money, which is half of half of 76 = half of 38 = $19.00 on sunglasses. Siri was left with $76.00 − $19.00 = $57.00 after buying sunglasses.

If you want to build the “most played PC video game” in all of North America and Europe, you need math. Lots of it.

Sure, computers do the heavy lifting, but if you don’t understand how linear algebra works, it’s game over.

So says software engineer Eric Friedman, who works on League of Legends (LoL), the multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game that’s topped the charts since its debut in 2009.

If you want a plant to grow, you don’t “leaf” it alone, you take care of it.