BATON ROUGE - As the cost of just about everything is going up, small business owners are being forced to get creative when it comes to cutting costs. 

Sarah Hays, owner of CounterspaceBR, says egg prices have tripled over the last year. 

“About a year ago, we were spending about $7 on a case of 60 eggs, and now we’re spending about $25 on a case of 60 eggs. So the increase has been tremendous," Hays said.

Hays says her bakery goes through about 400 eggs per week. At today's prices, she can't afford to waste much of anything.

“It’s really honestly just trying to be mindful. If we know one recipe is going to call for waste of one thing, trying to figure out something to do with that waste.”

Not only are they expensive, but eggs are also hard to come by in large quantities. Some stores are even putting limits on how many can be purchased at one time.

“That was one of the problems with Costco is that they’ll only let you buy two flats of eggs at a time right now, and we go through about 10 a week."

In the next few months, Hays is hopeful egg prices will come back down. Until then, she's cutting corners in any way possible to keep her baked goods at a reasonable price.

“It affects bakeries so interestingly and so differently because of all of the different areas of microeconomics that we touch. We touch flour, we touch dairy, we touch eggs. So it’s kind of interesting to be at the threshold of all the international happenings, to keep an eye on things," said Hays.