Melissa puts 2/5 of her babysitting money in savings and uses 1/2 of the remaining money to go to the movies. If she has $12 left, how much did she have at first?

If you work backwards, she had 24 before going to the movies. This is 3/5 of what she had originally. Use this to find 1/5 the but dividing 24 by 4 = 8 then multiply by 5 to get back to the original value 8 x 5 = 40

1/2 for the movies the other 1/2 is the $12

12*2=24

$24 is 3/5 of her babysitting money

24/3=8

$8 is 1/5 of her babysitting money

8*5=40

Solution: She had $40 at first