Amanda has 26 nickels and dimes in her piggy bank. the number of nickels is two fewer than three times the number of dimes. how much money does she have in her piggy bank

Amanda has 26 nickels and dimes. We shall call nickels x and dimes y. We can write the following equations: x = 3y - 2 or - x + 3y = 2 x + y = 26 We can cancel out the x to give 4y = 28 or y = 7 If there are 26 coins in total and 7 of them are dimes then there must be 19 nickels. The number of nickels (19) is two fewer than three times the number of dimes (3 (7) - 2 = 19).