Dafoe, The Lone Entrepreneur is a very ambitious man. He wants to make $1000 in the shortest amount of time! He starts out with $0 but is currently receiving $5 per day and he can purchase the following shops at any given time:

1-Shack. Cost: $10 Income: $5/day
2-Mall. Cost $25 Income $15/day
3-Shopping Center. Cost $150 Income $150/day

The money is always paid in at night and Dafoe can purchase as many new shops as his money allows in the mornings.

What would be the best sequence of shops to be purchased to to have a balance of $1000 on hand?

How many days would that take?

Money spent comes out of his balance and so is no longer part of the needed total balance of $1000.

(In reply to re: Now we have a problem(?) by Vernon Lewis)

OK. First of all we know that he already has 1 shack. He therefore has $5 available at the start of day 1. I did this in Excel because I wasn't on a computer that I could program on (No C++ compiler).

Day    Start $         Bought           Has             Total $ w/ income
1           5                  0               1 sh               10
2          10               1 sh             2 sh               10
3          10               1 sh             3 sh               15
4          15               1 sh             4 sh               25
5          25               1 m           4 sh, 1 m          35
6          35               1 m           4 sh, 2 m          60
7          60                 0             4 sh, 2 m         110
8         110                0             4 sh, 2 m         160
9         160              1 sc       4 sh, 2 m, 1 sc     210
10       210              1 sc       4 sh, 2 m, 2 sc     410
11       410                0         4 sh, 2 m, 2 sc     780
12       780                0         4 sh, 2 m, 2 sc    1170
13      1170

So therefore, by the time the income is collected after day 12, Dafoe has over $1000 with only 8 buildings.

Edited on February 3, 2006, 12:33 pm

Posted by Justin on 2006-02-03 12:29:07