Personal & property security
Threat assessment, home hardening, situational awareness, family planning, and self-defence — written by a former close-protection professional.
Read the guide →— A NEW PUBLICATION ON SELF-RELIANCE
Self-reliance for people serious about it.
Most preparedness writing is either fearmongering, gear-fetishising, or written for people who already know what they're doing. We're none of those things. We're a calm, evidence-led publication for the person who's just decided self-reliance matters — and wants to learn it from people who've actually done it.
Read the start-here guide →
Or browse by topic: Personal · Off-grid · Homesteading · Food · Preparedness
— THE FIVE PILLARS
Five subjects, covered seriously.
Authority sites earn their authority by going deep, not wide. We've committed to five subjects we believe matter most for the kind of self-reliance worth building. Each is a permanent department of the publication, with a comprehensive guide and ongoing reporting.
Off-grid living
Solar, water, power, waste, heat. The honest version of going off-grid — what it costs, what it takes, what to do first, and what to skip.
Read the guide →Homesteading at any scale
Self-sufficiency from a balcony to a smallholding. Vegetables, soil, chickens, aquaponics, water — written by a contributor with twenty years on the ground.
Read the guide →Food security & storage
The pantry, mid-term stores, and long-term provisioning. Pressure canning, water-bath canning, dehydration, fermentation — every safety-critical claim cited and reviewed.
Read the guide →Preparedness mindset & skills
Skills over gear. Plans before purchases. The thinking, planning, and practising that makes preparedness real rather than theatrical.
Read the guide →— LATEST FROM THE PUBLICATION
Recent reporting.
— FOOD
The 30-day pantry: an honest method that doesn’t feel like prepping
A 30-day pantry is the honest first step in food security. We work the spectrum from supermarket-deep to year-long — costs, failure modes, real food.
— SECURITY
Threat assessment: an honest, five-question home walkaround
Threat assessment is the first skill in serious home security. Five honest questions, a walkaround, a priority list — before you spend a rand on gear.
— HOMESTEADING
The productive homestead: real outputs from balcony to small farm
A productive homestead is a tradeoff, not a lifestyle. Real outputs, real time-cost, real food — from balcony to small farm. Honest numbers, no romance.
— ABOUT
Why this exists, and who it's for.
Survival & Prepping is for people early in their journey toward self-reliance — and the rest of us who've been at it long enough to know how much we still don't know.
We were founded by a former South African urban counterinsurgency operator and bodyguard — what we used to call COIN ops — now homesteading off-grid on nine hectares. Our contributors have spent decades doing the work the field talks about. We don't write for the audience that already has a generator, three months of stored food, and a security plan. We write for the person who has none of those things and is trying to figure out where to start — and we treat them like an adult.
We'll cover what's worth knowing, cite our sources where it matters, and stay out of the politics. The world is uncertain enough without a publication adding to it.
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