Tulsans Tighten Belt As Gas Prices Rise

Laura Moss, News On 6

TULSA, Oklahoma -- Financial tension is on the rise along with the price of gas. The pain at the pump is making it hard for one tulsan who relies on his car to keep his business going

Jerrid Cook and his wife both have full time jobs. To make some extra cash, Jerrid took up shopping for other people.

"Starting at 5 o'clock as soon as I leave work, I hit the grocery store," Jerrid Cook, founder of T-Town Delivery, said.

Jerrid says he brings home the bacon 6 days a week. His day job requires a more than 40 mile round trip commute.

Add to that at least 60 miles a night in grocery deliveries and you have a recipe for just about breaking even.

"I've already traveled about 80 miles today and about 5 deliveries," Cook said.

Filling up is starting to add up. AAA reports today's national average for a gallon of regular unleaded gas is at $3.49. Here in Green Country we're a $3.29.

"Unfortunately I've never had to focus on it gas hasn't really been an issue until it went up," Cook said.

Jerrid tells us his gas guzzling car does eat into his profits. He says he got the vehicle long before he started the business.

And now that it's paid off he'll just have to stick with it.

"I don't have that car payment if I did have a car payment I probably would trade it in just to help on the gas," he said.

Jerrid charges his customers a percentage on top of their grocery bill. He tells us he didn't factor in soaring gas prices.

The added commuting is costing him almost $400 a month to get from point A to point B, an expense that has led him to clipping coupons to support his family of five.

"It's definitely affecting the type of diapers I buy for them. If I don't have a two dollar coupon for them, I'm buying the cheaper pull up instead of the pull up brand," he said.

Now that he's seeing the extra savings at home, he's started using coupons for his customer too -- hoping it'll keep them coming back.

And, in the meantime, Jerrid is very positive about the whole ordeal. He says what comes up must come down.