That truly is an interesting calculation..
Where is the 43.8 comming from?

I am so confused on their thought process. Like, I understand making mistakes, wrong operations, misunderstanding the question... but where did their numbers even come from?

1.32 + 1.42?

Where did the 1.42 come from?

And 43.80? Where is that from? Is it from the 42? Then where did the additional 1.80 come from?

So I thought about this and I think it is actually

1.32
₁42

And the small 1 before 42 is that 1 you make when you add the tens digit in an addition. However there should not be another tens digit involved, and also 0.32+0.42 is 0.74 and not 0.64, and also I think this started as a multiplication.

Regarding the 1.80, I also thought about this but I got no fucking clue.

Best I can figure is that the 1.42 was written as 42 with a superscript ¹ fron the line below (as a tens marker when adding 6 and 8)

43.80 might have come from multiplying 1.32 by 4 but forgetting to do the 3?

They did 4x3 is 3, instead of 12. This is how they ended up $9 short on the final answer.

I think it started as 1.32 x 42, which they tried to solve as 2 x 1.32 (2.64) + 40 x 1.32 (they started correctly with .80 + ..., but I can't figure out how they mangled the second half). Anyway, 2.64 + .80 carries 1, which is the small 1 to the left of the 42.

When they did the 4x3 (=12) operation they didnt carry the 1 over to the next column and instead added it to the 2 (2+1=3) when they wrote it at the bottom.

Its 1.32 x 42. The .80 comes from 4x2, then they messed up on 4x3=12 by not carrying the 1 over to the next column and instead added it to the 2 making their answer for that part 4x3=3. The 4x1 should have gotten the carried over 1 making it 4x1+1=5 but instead they did 4x1=4

Wow! I can't do math like this anymore, but I CAN instantly tell that the final number is essentially a 3rd more, so nearly $14 bucks. If you land that far from 56, try again lol

I'm guessing they did the 4 x 3, noticed they had to carry, accidentally wrote the carry in the wrong column, then immediately went and added that carry to their leftover 2, thus only counting 3 in total.

I sent this to my mother who's a retired algebra teacher.

I'm curious if she'll laugh or be triggered