Divide energy costs by pay rate to determine how many hours of work it takes to pay for energy usage. Multiplication is one of the four basic mathematical functions. Any problem asking for a product requires the use of multiplication. You are probably familiar with multiplication problems that are given in column form, as in Example 1. This is how many places that must be counted from the right to place the decimal in your answer.
Multiplication is useful when calculating the cost of energy or energy related items.
For example, when purchasing a car, one might forget to take into account the cost of gasoline. The estimated gallons of gas per week times the cost of this fuel source must be considered. It may affect the size or style of car you can afford. This may not mean much to the prospective car buyer. Multiplying this cost by gallons used per week or per month, however, may make an impact.