Handling Finances

 From last week’s riddle, Morgan would have taken 15 months to make as much as Linda made in a year.  The solution is based on pretty simple compound interest equations, so this week, the riddle is a bit less ‘mathy’ and takes more logical reasoning skills.

3 were going on vacation, and in order to save money (since they know the value of a dollar), they decided to share a room. One man went to the front desk to find out how much a room costs, and the attendant told him that it costs $30 a night. After paying for the room, the man collected $10 from each of his friends to cover the cost of the room and they went upstairs to relax.

Ten minutes later, the lady at the front desk realized that she made a mistake and the room only cost $26! She gave $4 to the bell-hop and told him to run it up to the guys’ room. The bellhop figured he could make a little extra money, so he put $1 in his pocket, and gave $1 back to each of the 3 business men.

After all this confusion, each man paid $9 for the room for a total of $27.  Also, the bell-hop put $1 in his pocket for a total of $27+$1=$28.

So where did the rest of the original $30 go?

This week has been rather crazy for me with some new responsibilities at my job and the hardest part is coming home and trying to feel productive (or happy being unproductive). It’s a dangerous feeling because it often leads to spending money — both to relieve boredom in the act of shopping and to try to buy stuff that will entertain me. Knowing why I feel like buying stuff helps me keep myself under control, and my budget is loose enough that I can afford to spend $100 on eating out and playing with photography, but it’s important to remember that spending money won’t help me feel more content.

Anyway, on to the riddles.

Last week, Rob, Patrick and Jennifer invested their money and earned 5.87%, 5.34% and 4.90% respectively. A year after they invested their money, their spouses, Linda, Rachel and Morgan took over investing and again, they each invested $10,000 at the start of the year at a fixed rate compounded monthly. This time, they were less open about their investing and while Morgan revealed that he had earned $600 in interest — as much in the year as Rachel had in 11 months, Rachel only revealed that she had earned as much in the last year as Linda had in only 11 months. How many months would it have taken Morgan to earn at least as much as Linda earned in 12 months?