Rhonda Coop-Piraino, a hair stylist, said some clients had started coloring their hair at home. James Erath, below, who owns a dog walking and grooming business, has seen his sales fall from 25 to 50 percent.

By CATHERINE RAMPELL


A few months ago, as her family’s income fell, Laura French Spada, a real estate agent in Glen Rock, New Jersey, began dyeing her hair at home and washing the family cars herself. Her husband, Mark, started learning how to do electrical repairs.

Susan Todoroff, a personal trainer in Ann Arbor, Michigan, has begun brewing espressos at home and cutting her hair and cleaning her house herself. And Tamar A. Zaidenweber, a health care market researcher in the Queens section of New York City, is spending more time walking her dog instead of taking it to day care each week.

All of these consumers could praise themselves for their newfound frugality. But every step they take toward self-reliance hurts the businesses that have provided these services.

These small, service-oriented businesses are run in storefronts on urban streets and in suburban strip malls. Responsible for roughly 18 million jobs in America, according to 2006 Census Bureau data, these companies have long been seen as engines of economic growth. Yet after years of explosive expansion, many beauty salons, dry cleaners, landscapers, dog walkers, nanny services and restaurants experienced slower sales growth or even decline in the final months of 2008. Their services are suddenly, and painfully, being perceived as nonessential.

The question now for these businesses is whether demand will stabilize or, eventually, drop enough to force them to close.

Families had become accustomed to outsourcing more and more of their household chores. No longer was it just the very rich who had “servants,”said Jan de Vries, an economic historian at the University of California, Berkeley.

“Household members, particularly women, have been working more in the market,”Mr.de Vries said.“They have had less time and higher money income, and they have been spending a lot of that money income on services they once provided themselves.”

But many consumers now say they view specialist services as indulgences rather than necessities.

“A lot of the way we’d been living was all an illusion, a fantasy,”said Ms.Spada, who has also been cooking more and bathing the family dog instead of going to the groomer.“We’ve been asking ourselves: Can we replicate some of those specialized services, which normally we would outsource, ourselves?”

Even as people cut back, companies producing some of the do-it-yourself products are seeing higher sales.

According to Information Resources Inc., a market research firm in Chicago, sales of products used in home manicures, home cooking and home medical treatments, among others, have experienced healthy growth in the last year.

But the service providers have been hurting. James Erath, owner of Puppy Love & Kitty Kat in Manhattan, said,“Business is definitely down, about 25 or 50 percent down.”He has been offering steep discounts on grooming .

Similarly, Rhonda Coop-Piraino, a hair stylist in Dallas, said about 10 percent of her clients had started coloring their hair at home to save money. Many of these clients, she said, return to her salon for color correction when their home kits disappoint.

“They do come in sometimes with some pretty orange hair,”she said.“I have a hard time charging the same amount I once charged for color correction, though. I have clients who have been with me for so many years, and it’s hard for me to charge them $200 in this economy.”

Many consumers say that even when their financial worries abate, they will probably remain self-service converts.

“After doing it yourself, it’s like,‘Why was I ever spending $200 to pay someone else to do it for me?’”said Ms.Zaidenweber, who recently dyed her hair for the first time from an $8 home coloring kit.“It was kind of fun, even if it didn’t turn out exactly as I expected, and even if it took a couple tries to get it done right.”