As a small business owner when cash gets tight the first thing to go is the owner’s salary, or at least a portion of it.
This may not always be the right thing to do. I know too many who pay themselves so little in wages that their SS benefits are scheduled to be negligible.
The easy thing is to drop the owner’s salary and plan for the future to be better, not an optimal solution, maybe not even a realistic one.
I have counseled owners to pay enough to max out on their retirement plan, whether a 401K, a SEP or SIMPLE, or traditional IRA. Put the retirement dollars to work for initial tax free growth, get something going for a minimal SS benefit and figure it out from there.
This may cause more cash stress for the company, but there should be some pockets of cash, credit, credit cards, time, etc. If such measures are not available, the continuation of the company should be evaluated.
If you can’t squeeze a paycheck from the company long term, the company your future needs reevaluation.