Your plan
Answer eight questions.
You get a plan sized to your household and your budget, with the free things first and an honest price on everything else. It prints onto a couple of pages and it takes about a minute.
Your plan
A 5 day plan for 2 people
Spread across a few normal shops, this is a few extra items a week. Buying it all at once is what causes shortages, and it is also the most expensive way to do it.
10 gallons of drinking water (2 people x 1 gallon x 5 days). Refills count. There is no reason to pay for all of it.
Costs nothing. Do this first.
If you only ever do this section, you have a real plan, and it covers the large majority of what will actually happen to you.
10 one gallon bottles, or the equivalent in refilled containers
Free water, stored flat under a bed or in a dark cupboard. Swap it every six months when the clocks change.
2 people, one page
Names, medicines, doses, allergies, prescriber. On the fridge and photographed on two phones.
ID, insurance, prescriptions, tenancy or deeds, pet records. Email them to yourself so they survive the house.
Photograph each one. You will be looking for them in the dark or not at all.
One person, ideally in another town, that everyone in the household knows to ring if you cannot reach each other.
Your phone gets these automatically. A NOAA Weather Radio is the backup that still works when the cell network does not.
The single highest value habit on this site, and it costs nothing at all.
The most consistent finding in disaster research, in every country, for fifty years.
The cheap end, and the part that does the work
Bought one item at a time on shops you were doing anyway. Never a special trip, and never a big one.
1 or 2, kept in a fixed place
A flashlight you cannot find in the dark is not a flashlight. Give it a home and tell everyone where it is.
The most forgotten item in preparedness, every single year.
Check the sizes against the things you actually own before you buy any.
for 2 people
Your hob is electric, so a power cut is also a cooking cut. At least the first two days should need no heat at all.
Card outages take the tills, the pumps and the buses at the same time. Nobody can change a big note.
One decent shop
This is the level almost every household should stop at. Past here you are buying reassurance rather than capability, and there is nothing wrong with that as long as you know which one you are paying for.
The only device in the house that still works when power, internet and mobile all fail together.
2, one per adult
Charged, checked twice a year, kept in the same drawer as the flashlight.
10 gallons of drinking water (2 people x 1 gallon x 5 days)
Refills first, bought water second. There is no reason to pay for all of it.
Kept in the same waterproof bag as the medicines list and the document copies.
Paper copies of everything you photographed. Paper does not need a battery.
8 things that cost nothing, and about $245 of shopping spread over a few normal shops.
The one page to stick on the fridge
Fill this in by hand after you print it. It is the part that people who have been through something always say mattered most.
- Out-of-area contact, name and number:
- Where we meet if we cannot get home:
- Where the main water shutoff, the breaker panel and the gas valve are:
- Medicines, doses and allergies, for each person:
- Two neighbors, names and numbers:
- Utility and grid operator numbers:
- Insurance policy numbers:
Prices are rough USD estimates at ordinary shop prices. We sell nothing and take no commission on any of it. In an emergency, call 911 and follow official instructions first.