It's hard to keep a budget as Anne discovered when she prepared her class party. She had been assigned an amount of money from the common fund and spent half of it plus $2 for a nice cake. Then she spent half of what she had left plus $2 for baskets and flowers. She spent half of what she had left plus $1 for candy. At this point she noticed she was out of money. How much had she started with?
Anne started with $20.
If you think about what she had left for the candy, she spent half of what was left plus a dollar and was then out of money, so what she had at that point must have been twice the one dollar. Keep going from there.
