Ann Taylor - Savings HOW Big?

After finding all the great deals at Ann Taylor, my next hurdle was to convince my husband that all all the items were a HUGE savings! Of course he would believe that the best sale is when you don't even go to the store. But remember, these were 70% off of the lowest price...such great savings!

I take the items up to the register with Dave in tow. He glances at the "stack" of clothes. They start scanning each item and it shows the sale price, discount, and price we are paying as each items is scanned. However, I could tell he wasn't impressed yet. The total came out to about $93. (Whew, kept it under $100 thinking that was great too.)

I was waiting for the sales person to hand me the receipt and to circle the amount saved. You know, like they always do at Kohl's.

The moment to impress the husband with how well I did. To my great disappointment, she didn't say a word. NOW WHAT?!?

Ta-da! Math again. My brain starts in high gear. How can I quickly figure this out before we get to the car? Otherwise it might be a very long drive. I begin quickly thinking.....

I just paid 30% (see Ann Taylor - the Purchase) of the total. I saved 70%. Well if $93 was 30%, I would add $93 + $93 + $31.

In my head I could easily get to $186 ($93 doubled), but how can I quickly add $31 on to that. Remember folks, I'm on my way to the car. No stopping to write out the problem in standard algorithm form. I'm trying to redeem my expenditures and I'm losing the battle with every second. $186, $196, $206, $216, $217!

Here is a picture of what I did in my head.....(they call this addition using an open number line)

I saved $217!!! Wowy Zowy!


To take you back to your math class memories, your teacher might use an example like this to have you set up a proportion in order to solve this problem. Something that might have looked like this:



I know...you say I'd never do it that way. But that is an example a middle school textbook would have for that type of problem. That method does work great, but I believe when there is an easier way, find it. For that problem I would have needed, pencil, paper, and a calculator problem to tackle it that way.


Not needed. FLEXIBILITY and FLUENCY. That's what we need for the I Love Math generation. People can do this stuff in their heads!

It doesn't end there.....

I frowned when I saw my husband wasn't quite impressed with the $217 savings. All the way home I was thinking about it. Then the smirk started coming across my face. DUH.... The $217 was off of the sale price. What kind of savings would be reflected off the original price? I couldn't wait to get home to add up the total prices (which were not on the receipt) and give him the even better news.

For that task, I did revert back to my high school math teacher ways and using a calculator, found my answer. I added up all the original costs, subtracted the amount I spent, and proudly announced I had saved $505 on this purchase. I added....that meant I only paid for less than 20% of the original cost of the clothing. IS THAT CORRECT? Time for you to do some math.....

For those impressive numbers I got the response, "That is great! How come they never have men's clothes on sale like that?" (I consider that a win!) To which I responded, "They do, but you have to go shopping to find great deals like that, silly."