Itake half of jeremy's money and divide it into 7 equal piles. six of these piles blow away in the wind, but from the seventh pile, i take 2 dollars and hand jeremy the rest, which is 8 dollars. how much money, in dollars, did jeremy begin with?

$140 dollars,
Using the equation (1/2)J/7=x. J=Jeremy's total money.7 because it was divided into 7 piles. Then, since 6 piles are blown away, we don't need to care about that for now. After that, you take 2 dollars and give the rest to Jeremy which is 8 dollars. You can create the equation x-2=8. Solve for x which is $10. Finally substitute that into the first equation to get (1/2)J=70. Multiply 2 to both sides to cancel out the (1/2) and the 70 by 2 to get Jeremy's total money which is $140