A garden table and a bench cost $977 combined. The garden table costs $77 more than the bench. What is the cost of the bench? Let the garden table cost be g and the bench cost be b. We're given b + g = 977 g = b + 77 <-- The phrase more than means we add Substitute (2) into (1): b + (b + 77) = 977 Combine like terms: 2b + 77 = 977 Typing this equation into our search engine, we get: b = $450