First of all, is the cost of each box $14.90 (fourteen dollars and ninety cents) or $1.49 (one dollar and forty-nine cents)? I see that you are dividing 50 by the smaller number, but when you stated the problem, you used the larger number.

I don’t have a cat, but I recently bought cat food for a neighbor/neighbour who couldn’t get to the store when he ran out of cat food. $14.90 sounds like a lot for a box of cat food (unless it s a huge, wholesale club box meant for people with a lot of cats). So I will use $1.49 in my calculation.

Set up the problem by figuring that 3 boxes cost $2.98, which is 2 x the price of 1 box. Then divide $2.98 into 50. Rounding to the nearest whole number gives the result of 17. Multiply 3 to get 51. 17 x $2.98 = $50.66, but you said we could go a few cents over $50. If 66 cents is too many, then truncate the result of $2.98/$50 to 16. Multiply by 3 to get 48. 16 x $2.98 = $47.68. Throw in one more box at the full price of $1.49 to bring the total to $49.17

Summary:

51 (3 x 17) if you have 66 cents above $50.00.

48 (3 x 16) if you have fewer than 66 cents above $50.00.

49 (3 x 16 + 1) if you have fewer than 66 cents above $50.00, and you don’t mind buying one additional box without the offer.

If the price really is $14.90, then you can get 3 for $29.80. You can’t get any more boxes at the special offer, but you can buy one extra one at $14.90 without the offer. So the total here would be 3 or 4 (spending either $29.80 or $44.70).

The first question is, how much does each box cost: $14.90 (fourteen dollars and ninety cents) or $1.49 (one dollar and forty-nine cents)? Although you state the problem as using the larger number, I see that you are dividing 50 by the smaller number. Although I do not have a cat, I recently bought cat food for a neighbor/neighbor who couldn't make it to the store when he was out of cat food. If it's a large box meant for people with many cats, $14.90 seems steep (unless it's a wholesale club box intended for people with many cats). To figure this out, I'm going to use $1.49 so visit it.

You can set up the problem by determining that 3 boxes are 2 x the price of 1 box, which is $2.98. Subtracting 50 from $2.98. To round to the nearest whole number, 17 is found. Multiple 3 by 51 to find the answer. Using our formula, 17 by $2.98 = $50.66, but since you said we could go a few cents over, we'll go a bit over. To simplify, if 66 cents is too many, then divide $2.98/$50 by 16 to get 16. Multiply that number by three to get 48. You need 16 boxes at $2.98 each to reach $47.68. To make it $49.17, you need an additional box at $1.49.