Need help on a riddle

[LA_MERC_Dragonlady[s]]

3 men go into a motel to get a room, the clerk says the room is $30.00. So each man gives the clerk $10.00
Later the clerk realizes the room was only $25.00. So he gives the bellboy $5.00 to give back to the 3 men. The bellboy couldn't figure out how to split $5.00 evenly between 3 people, So he gives each man $1.00 and kept $2.00 for himself. So that means that each man paid $9.00. So the 3 men's total is $27.00 then add the $2 that the bellboy kept for a total of $29.. Where's the other dollar?


My cousin's friend told her this and she asked me about it... we can't get it and we've been thinking about it for hours now.. Any help????

[LA_MERC_MadMAX]

ok - you just made my head hurt...

:(

I suck at mathematics :)

[LA_MERC_Dragonlady[s]]

LOL My first answer was it went for taxs on the room... Then I told her that someone added wrong but none of those was the answer.. It's killing me I know it is something easy but I'm too airheaded to see it.. lol..

[LA_MERC_Cowboy_From_Hell]

Ok, Widow figured it out....

Don't worry about the details. Thirty dollars was given to the cashier and the cashier refunded five. The correct amount was paid for the room. How that five bucks gets divided makes no difference at all.

[LA_MERC_MadMAX]

(ignore)

[LA_MERC_MadMAX]

Got it!

Since each man has now paid $9 for the room (3 x 9 = 27), and the bellboy has $2 in his pocket (27 - 2 = 25), the rest of the money is in the hotel till.

The trick is to realize that the $2 has to be subtracted from the $27, not added to it.


Deskman Bellboy Men
----------------------------
$0 $0 $30 <-- men have not yet paid for room
$30 $0 $0 <-- men pay deskman
$25 $5 $0 <-- deskman pays bellboy
$25 $2 $3 <-- bellboy stiffs men
----------------------------
$25 $2 -$27 <-- what each group of people has
after all the transactions

The men have collectively paid 27 dollars for the room, which is obvious, since the bellboy took $2 and the actual cost was $25. And so we see that there is no missing dollar, because the $27 the men paid is a debt, written as a negative number, and the $2 the bellboy took is a profit, which is a positive number, and the sum is not $29, but a debt of $25, which was paid to the deskman.

[LA_MERC_Dragonlady[s]]

You are right!!!!

I just got the answer to it about an hour and a 1/2 ago and it took me that long to understand it. I never had so much trouble out of a riddle like I have this one. This one got me good.. I lost good brain cells from thinking about this for 1 1/2 hours.. all together I spent 5 hours thinking about it... LMAO...........

[LA_MERC_Andyconda]

I must be an ilogical thinker as it made perfect sense when I read it. It's stated a little off but if your thrifty like I am you realize that yes the room was only 25 dollars but the 2 dollars that the bellboy keeps is also money out of their pockets so 25 for the room plus 2 dollars for the tip equals 27 out of pocket expense. Still makes the room only cost 25. Still means the men got 1 dollar each back from their original 30 spent at the counter paying for the room. Not really a brain teaser at all if your frugal with your money. Lol.

[LA_MERC_Dragonlady[s]]

LOL Yeah it's not really a very good riddle but ALL riddles no matter if there hard or not still give me so much trouble!!! And for some reason it was so dang hard for me to understand the answer to this riddle. I was up all night until like 1:30 trying to understand it LOL... I understand it now tho.
Riddles gives me head aches!!!!