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Price Change and New Price in Two Steps

Percentages are used very often in daily life. A shop might have a sale—for example, they’re offering a 30 % discount)—or the price of a bus ticket might be increased by 6 %.

Let’s begin by practicing how to find the new price without thinking about percentages:

Rule

Discount and Price Increase

New price = Old price - discount

New price = Old price + price increase

I will deal with discounts given as a percentage first.

Example 1

A jacket used to cost $250, but it is now being sold at a 20% discount. What is the current price of the jacket?

You can figure out the answer in two steps:

The discount is

20% ×$250 = 20 × 1 100 ×$250 = $50

That helps give you the new price:

Old price discount = $250 $50 = $2005

At other times, the price might be increasing by a given percentage. You find this new price in a similar way, you just have to add instead of subtracting.

Example 2

A monthly bus ticket used to cost $32, but then the price increased by 15%. What is the new price?

You can do this in two steps the following way:

The increase in price is

15% ×$32 = 15 100 ×$32 = $15 × 32 100 = $4.80

The new price is: $32 + $4.80 = $36.80