WYOMING, Mich. — Tryston Crain has been mowing lawns since he was a kid. He started with a couple of houses in his neighborhood, before turning it into a full fledged business.
Now, rising fuel prices are threatening to squeeze his small landscaping business — and potentially his customer's wallets, too.
Crain started Crain Lawn and Landscape in high school, at the age of 16. Today, he serves more than 60 clients every week in the Wyoming area.
"I'm an owner operator with a couple guys that work with me on bigger projects, but primarily just myself," Crain said.
With dozens of clients to serve, Crain and his crew make frequent trips to the gas pump — filling up trucks two to three times a week, on top of fueling their four mowers.
I asked Crain what kind of impact rising fuel prices have had on his business.
"When you jump up $1 a gallon, that's 30 gallons, three times a week. That's $100 a week just for the truck, $400 a month, and you got the mowers on top of that. So, at this rate it's almost $1,000 extra a month," Crain said.
WATCH: Rising fuel costs are squeezing a Wyoming landscaping business — and customers could feel it soon
That added cost is forcing Crain to pull money away from growing his business just to keep up with daily operations.
"When we go into budget, with what we want to spend on, you know, X, Y and Z, and we have to take out money that we would usually put into reinvesting, growing the business back into just our daily operations. It hurts us," Crain said.
Crain said he does not want to pass those costs on to his customers — but may have no choice if prices stay high.
"When they're struggling with all their rising prices, you know, groceries on top of everything else, rent, gas, everything's going up. So it's just not something that I want to put on to them. But if it gets to a point where it keeps going up or stays this high for a while, it's something that you might have to think about," Crain said.
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