From Calculator-Dependent to Confident: My Math is a FigureOutAble Story

What does real math confidence actually look like in everyday life? In today’s guest post, Kristi Gottwalt, Director of Sales and Marketing at Math is FigureOutAble, shares how budgeting for a trip to Italy made her realize she’d stopped relying on memorized procedures—and how building true mathematical reasoning can transform the way our students learn.

The Duffle Bag Discount That Made Me Realize I’d Shifted

I was online, staring at a rolling duffle bag marked 30% off, when it happened. I did the math in my head, no phone, no pause, no panic, and landed on the discounted price before I’d even reached for my calculator.

Then, out of habit, I pulled out my phone and checked anyway.

I got it right.

That moment stopped me. Not because the math was hard (it wasn't), but because of how I did it. I didn't picture 30% as some abstract formula or step-by-step algorithm I half-remembered from school. I didn't fall back on “Fake Math”. Instead, I reasoned: calculated 10% of the price, scaled up three times, subtracted from the total. Clean. Visual. Mine.

It was the kind of Real Math thinking I'd absorbed after months of being immersed in Math is FigureOutAble, and I hadn't even realized it had become how my brain works now.

If just a few months of this kind of thinking could quietly rewire how I shop as an adult, I couldn't help but wonder what developing mathematical reasoning could do for your students in your classroom. could do for a kid who learned to mathematize this way from day one.

Packing a Bag, Reasoning a Trip

That duffle bag wasn't random. I was buying it for a trip to Italy I'm taking after the Challenge wraps up, and it turns out planning a trip is basically a full semester of applied reasoning.

Budgeting the trip, I caught myself doing math using thinking and reasoning over and over:

• Currency conversion: Instead of multiplying every euro price by an exact exchange rate algorithm, I used a friendly benchmark. I treated euros as "a little more" than dollars on an informal Open Number Line in my head to quickly ballpark whether something was in budget, then refined from there.
• Comparing options: When weighing two guided tours priced differently per day, I didn't compute exact totals on paper. I visualized the daily costs on a mental Ratio Table and scaled them up to see which held up as the better value over a full week.
• Daily spending targets: I took my total trip budget and reasoned it out in chunks. A week's worth, then a day's worth, building the number up from friendly pieces through a mental Problem String instead of dividing one big, ugly number straight through with the long-division algorithm.

None of this felt like "doing math" in the old, stressful sense of following a memorized, step by step procedure. It felt like thinking. It felt empowering.That's the whole point! Every time I noticed myself reasoning instead of dreading, I thought about how different my relationship with numbers might have been if I'd learned to mathematize in a classroom instead of picking it up decades later.

Still Reaching for the Calculator (And That's Okay!)

Here's the part I want to be honest about: I still double-checked the duffle bag discount with my calculator. I still double-check my trip budget numbers now. That habit hasn't disappeared, and I don't think it needs to.

What's different is why I check.

It's not because I don't trust my brain. It's confirmation, not rescue. I already know the answer before the calculator gives it to me. I'm just closing the loop. That's a completely different relationship with math than the one I used to have, where the calculator was the only thing I trusted at all.

That shift, from needing the calculator to simply consulting it, is exactly the kind of confidence I wish for every student to have the chance to build early, instead of years down the road like I did.

The Compounding Effect

This shift didn't happen overnight. It’s been building since I started at Math is FigureOutAble: one Problem String, one workshop, one "wait, I can reason through that" moment at a time. Each strategy I've picked up hasn't just sat in a folder labeled "for teaching". It's quietly rewired how I approach numbers everywhere: grocery store unit prices, tip calculations, and now, an entire trip budget for Italy.

That's what compounding mathematical reasoning actually looks like. It's not a single lesson that clicks. It's dozens of small moments stacking on top of each other until one day you're standing in a store aisle realizing you did percent math in your head without hesitation or panic.

If It Shifted Me, What Could It Do for a Student?

I'm an adult. I've had decades of traditional math instruction layered on top of whatever mathematical instincts I started with. And even for me, this way of thinking has been transformative.

So I keep asking myself: if reasoning-based math instruction can shift how I think about a discount, a currency conversion, or a shared bill after all these years, what could it do for a student who gets this kind of instruction from the start?

What could it mean for a kid who never identifies with the phrase "I'm not a math person"? What could it mean for a student who builds real confidence early, the kind that lets them trust their own reasoning instead of waiting for someone else or even a machine to tell them if they're right or wrong?

That's the shift I think about most. The goal isn't to eliminate calculators. It's to get to a place where you don't need one to know you understand something. You check because you're curious, not because you're unsure. That's the confidence I want for myself, and it's the confidence I want for every student sitting in a classroom right now.

Ready to See What Reasoning Can Do?

If reasoning about a duffle bag discount and a trip to Italy can show a marketer-turned-math-thinker like me what's possible, imagine what developing mathematical reasoning could do for your students in your classroom. in your classroom!

👉 Register for the Math is FigureOutAble Challenge and start building the kind of mathematical reasoning that compounds, for you, and for every student you teach!

Ciao and Happy Math-ing! ✨