I'm stucj and have been working on this for half an hour

ABC Corp distributes sun umbrellas

Selling Price $25/unit
Variable Expense $15/unit
Fixed Expense $8500/mo
Unit sales 1,000/mo

what is the margin of safety - more importantly how did you get there?:)

I'll answer how you get there, not what the answer is.

First, you have to know break even. You need to get down the concepts of variable and fixed costs, and break even, before you can do any problems that involve this stuff.

Break even is total fixed costs divided by unit contribution margin. The contribution margin is how much is being contributed (for each unit) towards covering fixed costs. That's break even. Then once those are covered, anything beyond that is profit. So by divided the fixed costs by that contribution margin, it's saying how many are needed to cover those costs?

A margin of safety is the amount sales are above break even sales.