KSHB 41 reporter Fernanda Silva covers stories in the Northland, including Liberty. She also focuses on issues surrounding immigration. Share your story idea with Fernanda.
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Mother's Day was a busy one at The Blossoms Market, but the influx of customers came with another increase — gas prices.
"It's very stressful," co-owner Mary Hagemeister said. "It's not something we accounted for when we first created our business plan."
Customers at a Northland gas station by the florist were paying $4.24 per gallon on Mother's Day.
The flower shop owners say those prices are affecting everything.
"Everyone has increased their prices, and they're adding an additional fuel surcharge on top of that because of how much gas prices have gone up," Mary said.
"What we normally spend on fuel has increased, I would want to say, by at least two times at this point," Mary said.
The Hoffman family says higher gas prices are also affecting them.
"It's a bit of a crunch," Jon Hoffman said. "It's just causing us to rethink how much we're driving."
"We have a big family. We have a total of six. We both have big cars, and it's getting expensive," Doty Hoffman said.
Not everyone in the Northland shares those concerns, however. Pam Sneed says the higher prices are worth it.
"It's worth it because our country's safer, so I don't mind paying more," Pam Sneed said.
Scott Sneed says he expects prices to come down.
"I think it'll probably go back down once everything is taken care of and settled with Iran," Scott Sneed said.
While waiting for prices to drop, businesses are getting creative. Nicole says the florist is consolidating trips to cut down on fuel costs.
"I'm trying to put more things together, so we're only going out one time versus taking small trips here and there," The Blossoms Market co-owner Nicole Maynard said.
"We're just going to say, hey, you know what? That just cuts into our margin a little bit. And that's just something we have to deal with as a business," the florist said.
But Mary says the financial pressure doesn't stop there.
"But ultimately, that cost does come to the customers," Mary said.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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