Marta bought 3 towels for $8.50 and 5 washcloths for $1.25 each. If the sales tax rate is 8%, what is the total amount of money Marta?

Determine the subtotal of Marta's purchase. Since she bought 5 washcloths at $1.25 each, simply multiply 5 and$1.25 together to get $6.25. Similarly, multiply 3 and$8.50 together to get $25.50.

Add together $6.25 and$25.50, which is $31.75. This is her subtotal before tax.

The tax rate is 8%, which means that multiplying together 0.08 and $31.75 will give you$2.54. This is the sales tax on Marta's subtotal.

Finally, add $31.75 and$2.54 to get $34.29, which is the total amount Marta has to pay for her towels.

Alternatively, for step 3, you could multiply $31.75 by 1.08. The '1' represents the subtotal, while the '.08' represents the sales tax that is to be applied to the subtotal.

The total amount of money Marta spent is $19.75.