JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The price you pay at the pump has never been higher.
On Wednesday, gas prices hit another record high of $4.75 per gallon across the First Coast. That's tough on your wallet, and these prices are also affecting small businesses.
Many businesses that rely on driving are seeing their profits shrink with every gas price increase.
The $4.75 for a gallon of gas poses quite the sticker shock, but what about when your business relies on large vehicles?
"It's tremendous, these are large trucks with big tanks," says Neil Mosby, the Operations Manager for Trutco, a lawn care service company in Jacksonville.
In order to spray lawns to keep them green, someone from Trutco has to drive from residence to residence; there's no working from home in the lawn care business.
"These trucks get 8-10 miles to the gallon and it's been quite a shocking difference," says Mosby, "our gas bill has really gone up. Last year our gas bill was around $82,000 and with the addition of a couple trucks we're looking at $137,000 we project for our fuel costs."
That's $55,000 more in gas expenses than last year for this Jacksonville-area small business. That's more money than the average American makes in a year... and that's assuming that gas prices don't rise even higher. However, there are ways that Trutco tries to mitigate the damage of high gas prices.
"We try to consolidate our routing as best as possible so when we're in a customer's area we try to have a route there that day, we try to avoid having to return to areas to do one-off accounts," says Mosby.
Increased driving means increased trips to buy expensive gas and potentially cause businesses to raise their own prices.
"We're doing everything we can to avoid it [raising prices], but across the board and the entire economy it's inevitable for everyday life," says Mosby.
"Not just the gas pump, everything we purchase has gone up. As a small company, we're doing everything we can to maintain the best value for what we do in town."
Trutco also has a number of diesel vehicles, and the price for a gallon of diesel is well above $5 per gallon.