Mr. smith has twice as much money as mr. hairy the average amount of money they have is $489 how much money does mr. smith have

Ok, so this one requires you to set up an equation that makes sense....(mr. Smith + mr. Harry)/2= 489...that is the average money from the problem....ok so let’s add some variables now and make it look like math. 2x is mr smith from the first sentence. X is mr. Harry. This yields

(2x+x)/2=489.....use inverse operations to yield
2x+x=978

Combine like terms to get

3x=978

Then divide by 3
To give you x=326

What does x tell you?
X= harry = 326
2x = Smith = 652

To check add them together and divide by 2 to get the average....489