You check around for the best deal on your prescription

Chapter 3, Problem 3.4.10

(choose chapter or problem)

You check around for the best deal on your prescription medicine. At your local pharmacy it costs $4.39 a bottle; by mail-order catalog it costs $3.85 a bottle, but there is a flat shipping charge of $4.00 for any size order; by a source found on the Internet it costs $3.99 a bottle and shipping costs $1.00 for each bottle, but for orders of ten or more bottles it costs $3.79 a bottle, and handling is $2.50 per order plus shipping costs of $1.00 for each bottle. a. Find a formula to express each of these costs if N is the number of bottles purchased and Cp, Cc, and CI are the respective costs for ordering from the pharmacy, catalog, and Internet. b. Graph the costs for purchases up to twelve bottles at a time. Which is the cheapest source if you buy fewer than ten bottles at a time? If you buy more than ten bottles at a time? Explain.