Gordon Conway says he's always been a workaholic. It's a good job too, because at the minute he's doing 15 hour days, six days a week.
Gordon, 48, owns The Malaga Drift Coffee Company, a small cafe bar on Church Street in Eccles. But at the minute things are so tight he can't afford to employ anybody else.
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"I can't afford staff," says Gordon, 48. "I have to be cheaper than Starbucks and Costa, but they can buy in bulk, they can own their premises - the only thing I can do is cut staff, so I have to do it myself."
Gordon, who spent most of his working life in logistics before opening up the cafe about six years ago, says luckily his energy bills are locked in until next summer. But the cost of everything else is soaring and he can't risk putting his prices up because he 'wouldn't have any customers left'.
"Business is slow," he said. "It's down 20 per cent since Covid. You can tell people are cutting back. They're not going out as much.
"I try to spend as little as I can, which is fairly easy because I'm at work all the time. But I'm living so cheaply at the minute it's ridiculous."
On Wednesday Liz Truss unveiled a six-month plan, starting in October, to pay about half of energy bills for businesses. It will undoubtedly help, but as Gordon says if your gas and electric bills have trebled in the last few months, you'll still be considerably worse off than you were this time last year.
He believes a more effective way of helping small business would be to reduce VAT or scrap it altogether. "They take VAT whether or not I make a profit," he said." It's a type of stealth tax. That's something they can cut straight away and it would be the biggest help to small businesses."
Yousef Sherzad, 22, is the manager of Best Bargains on Church Street and a small home furnishings shop across the the precinct. He says the smaller shop's utility bills have gone from £150 a quarter to more than £800.
"It's a small shop, there's only a few lights in there," he said. "It's not fair. The business doesn't make that much money.
"The price of everything has gone up, but if we put 20p on our prices the customers will be shouting. Everything is expensive at the minute, so people are not spending as much.
"It used to be very good. I used to be able to save and go on holiday, now I'm working seven days a week just to make ends meet. Everything I make, I'm spending. It's very tough."
Jackie Farrell has run Farrell's Shoe Repairs in Eccles since 1982. She's seen a lot of changes over those four decades, but says she's never known a tougher time to be in business than right now.
"Business is rubbish to be honest," she said. "We were shut for a long time because of Covid, but we were just getting back into it again, when [the cost of living crisis] happened.
"It's very hard. People are scared because they don't know what going to happen when their bills go up in October. No-one knows what's going on.
"But having said that our energy bills are fixed until 2024, it's small shop so we don't pay business rates and we have a good landlord who hasn't out the rent up in five years, so we're really lucky in many ways."
Jackie says businesses in Eccles have been badly affected by a number of offices closing down over the last few years and the nursing college moving out of the town centre. "It's been a slow decline," she said. "The office blocks all used to be full, now they're empty. The nursing college moved to Salford Quays.
"When we first started we had two full-time shoe repairers and a Saturday girl. Now it's just me and my husband and that's probably too much. And the young ones don't repair their shoes any more and most of them wear trainers anyway."
Jessica Quinn, 30, is the landlady of family-run pub The Station Bar on Church Street. She says trade has halved since Covid, and if that wasn't bad enough in November her energy bills are due to double.
"A lot of our customers are elderly and they're still worried about coming out," she said. "And then people are watching their money. They're cutting out luxuries like going out or getting their hair cut. It's hard.
"We haven't put our prices up yet, but they'll have to go up in November. Don't get me wrong people won't like it, but we have to do it to survive."
Jessica is getting married on Saturday, so is closing the pub for the day. And she says she agonised over whether to stay open on Monday (September 18) for the Queen's funeral.
"We opened on Monday for the Queen's funeral and we had quite a few people in, people who live alone or don't have tellies," she said. "But we had a few people saying they couldn't believe we were open.
"But it wasn't out of disrespect. I was open because my electric bills are sky high. It was hard enough to make the decision to close for one day, never mind two.
"It's just worrying. We have staff that have worked with us for years. They've got families, mortgages. We're responsible for them."
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