Fun with Math

I love to save money. I take advantage of sales, promotions, coupons, and whatever else I can to buy the best food for the least amount of money.

 

We also have a really great math teacher at our K-8 school. She hosted a "Family Math" 6-week class a few months back. The idea was to get the kids and parents to work together on fun math puzzles and problems. Kids got to see how cool math is, with some practical applications, and math skills were reinforced with the family.

 

Thus I decided to write our math teacher about my most recent shopping trip with the kids.

==================

Dear Mrs. Math Teacher,

 

I thought you would appreciate these two grocery math stories from my shopping trip yesterday.

 

1. Least Common Factor sale problem.

One of Princess Imagination's favorite treats, Sparkling Grape Juice, was on sale at 2 bottles for $4. It usually retails for $3.99 each bottle. As I was picking up the bottles, I noticed a coupon on the bottle that said "Save $1 on any 3 bottles." I told Princess Imagination I wanted to plan my purchases so I took advantage of both sales.

 

I got 6 bottles for $12, less $2 in coupons, which is $10 for 6 bottles, or $1.67 per bottle.

 

2. Is "Buy 1 Get 1 Free" Sale the best deal?

There was a "Buy 1 Get 1 Free" sale on frozen shrimp. A two-pound bag of large, raw, white shrimp was $24.99, the second one was free. Nearby was a two-pound bag of medium, raw, white shrimp, on sale for $10.99, $5 off from the usual $15.99. A lady next to me was all excited to save $25. I said that is great, but I'm going to get my shrimp even cheaper than that. The "Buy 1 Get 1 Free" shrimp comes out to $6.25 per pound, but the other shrimp on sale comes to just $5.49 per pound. I don't care how big my shrimp is, but how little it costs per pound! (When I left her, she was still trying to decide whether to get the bigger shrimp or the smaller unit price.)

 

Also, yesterday was Tuesday, with a running store promotion of 5% off an entire order over $30 for seniors. I've discovered that if I have certain cashiers, they give me the 5% discount because I'm a loyal customer. So the additional 5% discount my grape juice was just $1.59 per bottle (only 40% retail) and my shrimp was just $5.22 per pound.

 

Oh, yeah, I love math.

 

Best regards,

The Mominator