Cheryl Lowry spends most of her time in the van.

A working mother of four, Lowry drives “several hundred miles” each week as part of her job. She travels all over the metro area, including trips to Chickasha, Yukon or downtown Oklahoma City.

And that’s just for work.

Figure in football practice and the games for her youngest son, the weekly trip to and from the grocery store for the family and those trips when she’s “taking the girls where they need to go” and it’s obvious most of Lowry’s time is spent behind the wheel.

The problem is, it’s getting more expensive.

Much more expensive.

With gas prices hitting record levels in Oklahoma — and across the rest of the nation — Lowry, like thousands of others, now finds herself trying to balance the ever-increasing cost of fuel against skyrocketing food prices.

And things are getting worse.

“We don’t eat out a lot,” she said. “And we don’t do many extra events, it’s just too expensive.”

Today, her trips to the grocery store — not including the cost of getting there — are painful.

“You can definitely tell that the price of gas has affected everything,” she said. “I shop every week and the food prices have all gone up tremendously — on almost everything.”

Those prices, she said, didn’t just increase by “a little bit” but instead, have jumped by large margins. “Overall, food has gone up a lot. It takes much more effort to just plan a few different meals. And now, dinner is much more expensive to make. We work hard on our grocery budget. But, now, it’s hard to eat the same things you’re used to, when prices have gone up. We don’t even purchase the occasional treat any more.”

Blame high gas prices.

As the cost of fuel increases, the cost of trucking food to stores across the country also has increased. Those higher costs are pushed onto the consumer.

Then, there’s the corn issue.