Finding discounts when you go shopping can make purchases much more tempting because of the additional savings you get by buying the product at that time. However, a discount may not make the item affordable for your budget. In order to figure out if a discount makes an item affordable, you need to figure out how much the item will cost after the discount. For discounts measured as a percentage, the size of the discount depends on the original price of the item.

First, convert the percentage discount to a decimal. A 20 percent discount is 0.20 in decimal format.

Secondly, multiply the decimal discount by the price of the item to determine the savings in dollars. For example, if the original price of the item equals $24, you would multiply 0.2 by $24 to get $4.80.

Finally, subtract the value of the dollar discount from the original price to find the price of the item after the discount. In this example, you would subtract $4.80 from $24 to find the price after the discount to be $19.20.