The Iran War Has a La Crosse Price Tag: $70 More a Month at the Pump

Good Stewards Network

Aug 6

2 min read

Shocked driver reacting to fuel price on pump while filling car. Woman looking surprised at fuel pump display while refueling car at gas station.

Seventy dollars a month is real money. It's a utility bill. It's two weeks of school lunches. It's the difference between making rent comfortably and not quite. And La Crosse families are spending that much extra — every month — just on gas.

The War Behind La Crosse's Gas Prices

The math starts with oil. Before the Iran war, the national average was $2.98/gallon. When U.S. and Israeli forces launched the conflict, oil markets reacted fast — because Iran sits at the edge of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow passage through which roughly one in five barrels of the world's oil travels every single day. Crude surged past $100/barrel within weeks. The pre-war average of $2.98/gallon didn't survive the spring.

Gas in La Crosse is now averaging $3.87/gallon — $0.89 more per gallon than before the fighting started. On a 20-gallon tank, that's $17.80 more every fill-up. Fill up four times a month and you've added $71 to your monthly expenses — not because of anything that happened in Wisconsin.

Bar chart titled Gas Prices Across Western Wisconsin shows Eau Claire $3.91, La Crosse $3.87, WI State Avg $3.83, Pre-War Avg $2.98.

Rising Fuel Costs Have Made Groceries More Expensive Too

Festival Foods, where a lot of La Crosse families do their weekly shopping, hasn't been immune. Neither has ALDI or Woodman's. The logic is simple: food moves by truck, and trucks run on fuel. When oil prices spike, every delivery gets more expensive, and that cost works its way onto the shelf. Ground beef is now $6.90/lb, milk runs around $3.68/gallon, and eggs are $3.93/dozen. Wisconsin food prices overall are up significantly, and the Coulee Region isn't immune.

Wisconsin families are spending an average of $220 a week on groceries. For La Crosse households already dealing with higher rents and wages that haven't kept pace, the ripple effect of this war through energy markets means real dollars gone — before the week is even over.

Tariffs Are Part of the Monthly Math Too

The gas calculation above doesn't account for tariffs also adding to the grocery bill — and they are. The 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada hit produce especially hard — avocados, tomatoes, peppers, strawberries, and limes all largely move through Mexican supply chains, and the tariff cost works its way to the shelf. At Festival Foods, ALDI, and Woodman's, the fresh produce section reflects those added costs alongside the fuel-driven price increases.

Steel and aluminum tariffs pushed up packaging costs on top of that — canned goods and packaged staples got more expensive when the cost of making the can went up. Grocery retailers have confirmed they're passing those costs to customers. The $220-a-week Wisconsin grocery average has multiple forces behind it, and La Crosse families are absorbing all of them at once.