Who else here can't do mental math & doesn't know x tabl

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I'm in the same boat too. For the most part I still need to use my fingers for basic adding and subtracting problems, though if it is obvious enough (like 10+40 or 55-5) I can do it without my fingers.

I find I can do mental math much faster when I can come up with shortcuts for various common equations (i.e. a quarter, a dime, and a nickel = 40 cents).

It's strange to think of the times table as math. That's just something you memorize when you're in elementary school. I suppose it was just the environment I came from.

I'm the opposite. When I was in primary school I could work out any multiplication question where both numbers are two digits. My skill in mental arithmacy is borderline savant.

Despite this, I've never been a particularly great maths student, though I get A's when I apply myself.

Beyond primary school, most people can't do mental arithmetic.

Every store I've ever worked in keeps a calculator for the situation you described. Even if their employees could calculate correct change mentally, they wouldn't be trusted to hand it to the customer without checking on the calculator just in case.

Couldn't memorize times tables at all, family and school assumed I was slow (serious tests and what not). I gave up trying to learn math after that, hated it for years but now I am slowly getting over it and trying to learn more calculations, theory and history behind it. I am still really terrible at it though and many times I have thought I am dumb over not knowing my math as well and not being able to do it in my head like others.

I can do times tables, though I usually count it on my hands anyway. I can do most mental maths but only if it's adding, I can't takeaway in my head at all.

Let me just say that these days the schools do not do a good job at teaching math and some person with not much brains at all decided to teach math in a very un-intelligent way. So it is no one's fault under 30 or 20 or whatever age group was affected by this less than stellar method at teaching math, that they are unable to do mental math. Yes I can do mental math and I was a cashier at one time. Mental math comes in handy when I need to leave a 15% tip at a restaurant or the hair salon. I can do mental math to a point and could not do large numbers multiplied in my head and maybe I could if I really practiced.

math is an enemy of mine. in primary school i lagged behind seemingly everybody else when it came to single digit times tables. i stayed home after school once and did them with help just to catch up.
i actually found division to be a bit easier.

when i was told that simple multiplication was repeated addition (controversial, is it?!) i understood, but i was also told that division was "repeated subtraction" and i still find it hard to work that out.

mental math is easy for me if it involves simple addition/multlipication with numbers ending in 5 or 0, doesn't really matter the size. i'm not very good at seeing patterns in numbers so anything else isn't easy for me. might still be able to do it in my head but it's faster to use a calculator.

Multiplication is repeated addition, but division is it's own thing entirely. It's similar to subtraction in that your end result is smaller than what you start with, but that's where the similarities end.