Percents

Percentages in Real Life

Discounts, markdowns, and sales

Have you ever bought something on sale marked down by twenty percent? Or used a coupon to take 30% off? If so, you've used a discount. A discount is usually a percentage of the original price. The percentage is subtracted from the original price to determine the sale price.

Let's say a shirt costs $8, but it's been marked down by 50%. When you check out, 50% of $8 will be subtracted from the original price. How much would the shirt cost after the discount?

Click through the slideshow to learn how to calculate discounts.

Let's say a shirt costs eight dollars, but it's on sale for 50% off.
This means it will cost fifty percent less than the original price, or half as much.
This discount is a percentage of the original price. Here, 50% off means the discount is 50% of $8.
50%, or half, of 8 is 4. This means the shirt will cost $4 less than the original price.
Remember, the discount is taken off of the original price. So we'll subtract the discount from the original price.
8 minus 4 is 4.
So the shirt would cost four dollars on sale.
Let's try another example. What if the same shirt was on sale for 20% off?
This means it would cost twenty percent less than the original price. This time, it'll take a few more steps to find the final price.
The discount is 20% of $8.
Whenever, you see the phrase "of something" in a math sentence, it's usually a hint that you'll need to multiply.
So we'll multiply 8 by 20%.
Before we can do that, we'll need to convert 20% into a decimal.
We'll move the decimal point two places to the left...
We'll move the decimal point two places to the left...so 20% becomes 0.20.
Now we can multiply. 8 times 0.20 equals 1.60.
Another way to say this is that 20% of $8.00 is $1.60.
The shirt will cost $1.60 less than the original price of $8. So we'll subtract the discount from the original price.
8.00 minus 1.60 equals 6.40.
So the shirt would cost $6.40 on sale.