Question

Whitney is looking for a job cutting hair. One option is self-employment at The Rockport Salon, where she would pay $580 per month to rent a station and keep all of her earnings. Another option is to work at a franchise, where she would just have to pay the salon $2 for every haircut. If she performed a certain number of haircuts every month, the amount paid to either salon would be the same. How many haircuts would that be? How much would Whitney pay?

Answer 1

ANSWER

If Whitney performed 290 haircuts in a month, she would pay $580 to either salon.

EXPLANATION

She has two options of rent:

• Self-employment: $580 of rent to the salon monthly

,

• Franchise: $2 per haircut

Let x be the number of haircuts Whitney does in a month. Independently of the number of haircuts, the Rockport Salon's rent is always $580. If she does x haircuts in the franchise, the cost of rent is $2x.

We have to find for how many haircuts, the rent is the same for both, so we have to solve the equation,

$2x=580$

Divide both sides by 2,

$\begin{gathered} \frac{2x}{2}=\frac{580}{2} \\ x=290 \end{gathered}$

Hence, if she performs 290 haircuts, the rent for both places will be the same, $580.