Hi, I'm Kate

I'm not a prepper. I want to be clear about that. When I think about what I'm doing here, the mental model isn't bunker or apocalypse. It's fire extinguisher. You don't expect your house to burn down, but you have one anyway, because it costs very little and the downside of not having it is severe.

The cost of living crisis made me realise how much we were relying on systems that could break. Mains water, mains power, weekly supermarket deliveries. None of those things are guaranteed. I started asking what would happen if any of them failed, and I didn't like the answers.

I started with a water filter. Then I grew too many courgettes and learned to preserve them. Then I bought a chest freezer and started building a proper pantry. The EcoFlow showed up after a power cut lasted eleven hours in January.

That's how this site started. I was writing these things down for myself, and then for friends who kept asking the same questions.

How I Research

I own most of the gear I write about. The British Berkefeld filter on my kitchen counter, the EcoFlow DELTA 2 in the garage, the food dehydrator that lives on top of the cupboard most of the year. When I recommend something, it's because I actually bought it or researched it seriously enough to know what I would buy.

I also pay close attention to community sources — r/preppers and r/selfreliance are where you find out what actually works after 18 months of use, which brands have terrible customer service, and which “survival gear” is just camping gear with better marketing. I take that seriously.

When I haven't personally used something, I say so. I won't pretend otherwise.

The point of all this

I'm not preparing for the end of the world. I'm preparing for the next time the boiler breaks in January and I haven't got time to panic. For the next burst pipe. For the next supermarket strike. For the next extended power cut.

These are not extreme scenarios. They are things that happen to ordinary families in ordinary houses. Having a plan for them doesn't require a bunker or a wilderness survival course. It requires a water filter, a bit of organised food storage, and some thought about what you'd do if the lights went out for a week.