I Have 5 Dollars Riddle || Solution Explained

This is an excellent riddle that is always trending on social media including Facebook, Instagram & WhatsApp as it tests the logical skill of a person. 

Riddle states that, 

“I had 5 dollars. My mom gives me 10 dollars, while my dad gave me 30 dollars. My aunt and uncle give 100 dollars. I had another 5 dollars. How much money did I really have?”

Solution :

The answer to this puzzle is 10.

This is the traditionally accepted answer, but not everyone agrees with it. Essentially, the riddle is based on tenses and not mathematics. It’s asking “How much money did I really have?” This is past tense. It’s not asking “How much money do I have currently?”

Paying close attention to how the question is worded, notice the question is “how much money DID I really have?” rather than “how much money DO I really have?”The way the question is worded encourages you to question how much money you had before being given some by the relatives. By throwing in a bunch of different figures, it aims to throw audiences off into thinking they must add them all together. With this in mind, “I had 5 dollars” and “I had another 5 dollars” are the facts worth taking note of to provide an answer.

So the answer to the riddle is 10 dollars.

So basically, the riddle is asking how much money you had, not about the amounts that people give or gave. So you only pay attention to the two parts of the riddle that say, “I had 5 dollars” and “I had another 5 dollars.”  Disregard everything else, and you have the answer. Only twice in the riddle were we told what you had, which was 5 dollars and then another 5 dollars. 

Another version might read pesos instead of dollars, but the end answer will be the same. It may read like this:

I had 5 pesos. My mom gives me 10 pesos, while my dad gave me 30 pesos. My aunt and uncle give 100 pesos. I had another 5 pesos. How much money did I really have?

One more variation...

“I had $2.00. My mom gave me $10.00 while my dad gave me $30.00. My aunt and uncle gave me $100.00. I had another $5.00. How much did I have?”