Money
Buy two item types
Find the total cost of two relevant purchase categories, including stories with more than one unit of an item.
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Purchase and change word problems
Calculate the cost of a purchase, work out the amount paid and subtract to find the change due.
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Calculate the total purchase cost first. Find the full payment amount, including the number of bills used, then subtract cost from payment. These practice problems provide enough payment; exact payment correctly produces $0.00 change.
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Customize this worksheetMultiply quantities before finding change
The multiplication-change profile uses multiple items in both purchase categories. Calculate each category’s cost, combine them and subtract the purchase total from the bill payment.
Open multiplication and change practice →Learning objective
What this activity builds
Separate cost from payment and use their difference to find a nonnegative change amount.
Worked example
Ari buys 2 pads at $2.35 each and a pen for $1.10, then pays with 2 five-dollar bills. What change is due?
$4.20.
The pads cost $4.70, so the total cost is $5.80. Two five-dollar bills make a $10.00 payment. Subtracting 580 cents from 1,000 cents gives 420 cents, or $4.20 change.
Teaching notes
Make the practice count
- Keep two labeled amounts, total cost and total payment, before writing the subtraction.
- Use a count-up check: $5.80 plus $4.20 returns to the $10.00 payment.
- Discuss the exact-payment case explicitly. Zero change is a meaningful answer, not an incomplete question.
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Customize the practice
Choose your options, update the preview, then download the exact same pages.
Choose the multiplication-change profile to put two to five items in both purchase categories. Multiply each quantity by its unit price before subtracting the total from the payment.
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A useful next step
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