Expert: Scott A Wilson - 2/24/2010

Question
Bobby has only pennies, dimes, and quarters. One half of Bobbies coins are pennies,1/4 are quarters, and three of coins are dimes. How many coins does Bobby have?

Answer
Since 1/2 of coins are pennies and 1/4 are quarters, that leave 1 - 1/2 - 1/4 = 14 for dimes.
Since there are 3 dimes and this is 1/4 of the coins, there are 12 coins.

That means there are 6 pennies, for 6c.
That means there are 3 quarters, for 75c.
At the start they said there were 3 dimes, and that is 30c.

So the answer is 6 + 75 + 30 cents.

That is just over $1.

11c over to be exact.

Okay, I'll say it.  That is $1.11.

In other words, if the coins were all dimes, he'd have just a little more in value
and a lot less in weight.  I don't know - just something to think about.

Now when I was a kid, that would have bought around 22 packages of life-savers
with a penny left over.  You know, the little round pieces of candy with a hole
in the middle ... that's what I use to buy.  Orange ones.

Also, it was a little less than the amount of money made at minimum wage for one hour work.