A hair salon owner can only afford to open the doors four days a week due to soaring costs - and says if she'd known, she wouldn't have bought the shop in the first place.
Dennie Smith, 61, took over her own Croydon-based hair salon, Vintage 62, in 2015.
The business owner, who has worked in the hair industry for 40 years, said it had been a lifelong dream.
She and husband Graham Smith, 60, sold their home of 23 years to be able to afford to take over and lease the salon.
But Covid left the salon on its knees - and in July 2020, they had to close on Mondays to reduce outgoing costs.
Next month, Dennie said they will also be closing the salon on Tuesdays in a bid to reduce costs even further and make sure their open days are booked up.
Dennie, originally from Croydon, southeast London, said: "Running a business is hard enough as it is.
"Stock prices have gone up - I cancelled a flower subscription, a magazine subscription and the window cleaner only comes once a month now.
"Hopefully once we're shut on Tuesdays it'll mean the other days will be busier.
"We really can't afford to have the heating on when there's only one customer in.
"I'm absolutely gutted, when you buy a business you buy it to do well and make money."
Dennie's situation is sadly far from unique - a recent survey revealed more than a quarter of hairdressers are thinking of closing sites or reducing the size of their salon due to high energy costs.
She has been leasing the salon so her rent won't go up until the next rent review in 2025, but Dennie said every other cost has risen.
She said: "After we leased the salon, we spent thousands gutting it and turning it round.
"It was very successful and busy, when I look back at videos it's so depressing now. We were doing really well."
But she explained in 2020 after Covid hit, 51 clients never came back - and they closed on Mondays to save cash.
She said the cost of stock, which used to be £700 per month, has risen now to as high as £1,200 some months.
Their music licence has shot up from £37 to £57 a month and their energy bills have risen by at least £100 per month, she said.
To combat the dramatic rise in costs and fall in number of clients, as of May 1, the shop will also be shut on Tuesdays - because it's not cost efficient to keep it open on quieter days.
Dennie, a mum-of-four, said: "If you had told me eight years on I would only be open four days a week, I wouldn't have taken over the salon.
"If I had had a magic ball back then, I wouldn't have had this stress.
"I can't think of anything else I can do except shut Tuesday, I sit there and wrack my brains.
"I'm absolutely gutted, when you buy a business you buy it to do well and make money."
Dennie - a self-confessed 'geek' - revealed to combat rising costs she has had to kickstart a side hustle.
She is now running a dating app for 'the geeky community' called Geek Meet Club - and she hopes an income from that can supplement tough months in the salon.
She said: "I am staying optimistic and positive we will have four busy days and maybe one day we can open on a Tuesday again.
"But sometimes I do think 'why the hell did I do this?'.
"You don't know from one day to the next what will happen - lockdown proved that one very well.
"If I speak to the other shop owners on the street they're all in the same boat too - it is very sad.
"Running a business is hard enough as it is - I could literally sit and scream thinking about it."
