The rules we write under
What we will never do.
Every preparedness website should publish this and almost none of them do. Ours is short, and we would like to be held to it.
We will never frighten you into buying something
The preparedness industry runs on fear, because frightened people buy things they do not need at prices they would otherwise laugh at. You will not find a countdown clock, a burning map or a discount code on this site. The first plan we give you is free, and we will tell you when to stop spending.
We will never cover weapons, ammunition or self-defence equipment
We serve households in Britain, across the European Union and in the United States, and the law is completely different in each. Rather than write three sets of dangerous half-advice, we leave the subject alone entirely. It is also not what preparedness is. In every real emergency that has ever happened to an ordinary household, the useful items were a flashlight, a radio and a neighbor.
We will never tell you to stockpile
Panic buying is what creates the shortage. Every official body in every country we cover says the same thing, and so do we: one extra item on the shop you were doing anyway, over a few months. It is cheaper, it is calmer, and it does not take food off a shelf that someone else needed today.
We will never tell you to move your money
We will not tell you to take your savings out, buy gold, buy currency or buy anything else. That is investment advice, we are not licensed to give it, and a bank run is the one thing that reliably turns a technical fault into a real crisis. Deposits are protected by law in all three of the places we serve.
We will never give you medical or legal advice
We will not tell you what dose to take, what tablet to buy, or what to do in a radiological incident beyond the one instruction every government in Britain, Europe and the United States agrees on: go in, stay in, and listen to your own national authority. Timing and dose are the entire point of that kind of advice, and getting them from a website does harm.
We will never point at a group of people
Preparedness is about water pressure, cable routes, weather and supply chains. It is not about your neighbors, immigrants, a religion or a political party. Any site that slides from emergency kit into telling you who to be afraid of has stopped being a preparedness site.
We will never publish speculation as fact
Nothing goes into the Brief until an official or on-the-record source has said it. We say plainly when we do not know, and we would rather be a day late than wrong. If that makes us slower than your feed, that is the product working.
We will never track you
No cookies, no analytics that identify you, no advertising, no data sold to anyone. The plan builder runs entirely inside your own browser, which means the answers you give about your household, your children and your medical needs never leave your device and never reach us.
We will never tell you to break the law where you live
Everything we suggest is lawful for a private household to do in the United Kingdom, in all 27 EU member states and in all 50 US states. Where the law genuinely differs, we say so on the page rather than writing something that is only true in one of them.
Everything on this site is legal to do in all fifty states. We do not cover firearms, ammunition or self-defense equipment. That is a personal decision with its own laws in every state, and it is not what this site is for.