The First Hour
What to do the moment the power goes out — in order — on a printable card you can tape inside a kitchen cabinet.
From the host of the Hank Ridley channel
Skip & Stockpile: The 14-Day Stay-Put Plan
Water, food and warmth for your family for two weeks when the trucks stop — no generator, no freeze-dried buckets.
Get the plan now →
$19 USD · one-time
Download right after checkout. Read it on your phone, tablet or computer — or print it and put it in a binder.
Hank Ridley
The problem
Most people buy a thing and think they’re ready.
A pallet of bottled water. A bucket of freeze-dried food with “one month supply” on the label. A generator in the garage that hasn’t been started since the day it came home.
Then the power goes out in January, the stores are picked clean by Tuesday, and the questions start:
- How much water does my family actually need — and is it already in the house?
- Does that “30-day” food kit really feed a grown adult for 30 days?
- How do we cook with almost no fuel?
- How do we keep warm at night without running a heater that could poison us?
- What do we do about the toilet, the pipes and the food in the freezer?
A thing is not a plan. This is the plan.
The idea
The cheap system beats the expensive gadget.
Skip & Stockpile is a plain-spoken, step-by-step plan to keep your family fed, watered and warm at home for 14 days — built from ordinary groceries, a few containers and what’s already in your house. No tactical gear. No fear-mongering. Just the numbers, the lists and the order to do things in.
Skip
Cases of bottled water, pricey freeze-dried buckets, gadgets you’ll never practise with, and anything that needs fuel you don’t have stored.
Stockpile
A cheap water storage system, a farmhouse pantry of rice, beans, lentils, oats and peanut butter — measured in pounds per person — and a warm-room setup that works with the lights off.
What’s inside
Everything you need for two weeks, in order.
48 pages, written in plain English, with tables you can read at a glance and worksheets you can print and fill in at the kitchen table.
Water
- Exactly how much your family needs — a table for 1 to 6 people at 3, 14 and 30 days
- The cheap storage system that beats cases of bottled water
- The 30–80 gallons hiding in your water heater, and how to drain it safely
- The EPA bleach dosing table
- Boiling and filter guidance
- Rain collection
Food
- The 30-second “calorie check” that shows whether an emergency food kit really lasts a month
- The 14-Day Farmhouse Pantry: exact pounds of rice, beans, lentils, oats, peanut butter and more per person — about 34,000 calories, scaled for families of 1 to 6
- Packing rice and beans in Mylar and buckets to last decades — and the oxygen-absorber mistake most people make
- Cooking with almost no fuel, including the old farmhouse “haybox”
- A 14-day menu
- Fridge and freezer outage rules
Warmth
- Heat the person, not the house
- Setting up one warm room
- The bed setup for cold nights
- Layering that actually works
- Signs of hypothermia and frostbite to watch for
Safety
- Carbon monoxide and heater rules
- Toilets and sanitation without running water
- Protecting your pipes
- The car kit
The Skip & Stockpile List and the 30-Day Build Plan
What to skip, what to buy instead, and a four-weekend plan that gets the whole thing done in a month without blowing the budget.
Print these
Printable worksheets included
Fill them in once, keep them in a binder by the pantry, and everyone in the house knows where things are.
- Family info sheet
- Shutoff map
- Pantry inventory
- Rotation log
- Water log
- First Hour card
Four weekends. One month. Done.
The guide breaks the whole build into a 30-day plan you work through one weekend at a time, so it never turns into one giant, expensive shopping trip.
No guesswork
Built on official guidance.
The water amounts, bleach doses, food-safety rules, calorie numbers and cold-weather warnings in this guide are taken from public guidance by these agencies, and the sources are cited in the guide so you can look them up yourself.
- CDC
- FEMA / Ready.gov
- USDA
- EPA
- American Red Cross
These agencies did not write, review or endorse this guide. It’s cited against their published guidance.
Is this for you?
Who this plan is for
It’s for you if…
- You own your home and want to stay put through a long outage, storm or supply disruption
- You’d rather spend a little on groceries and containers than a lot on gadgets
- You want clear numbers and lists, not a pile of maybes
- You’re looking after a spouse, kids, grandkids or a parent and want everyone covered
- You like having it on paper, in a binder, where you can find it with the lights off
It’s not for you if…
- You’re after tactical gear, weapons or bug-out advice — this is a stay-at-home plan
- You want a long-term, off-grid homesteading course
- You’re looking for medical training — this is general preparedness information
Get the 14-Day Stay-Put Plan
$19
USD · one-time payment · instant download
- The complete PDF guide (48 pages)
- The First Hour printable card
- Water, food, warmth and safety chapters with tables for families of 1–6
- The 14-Day Farmhouse Pantry list and 14-day menu
- The Skip & Stockpile list and four-weekend build plan
- Six printable worksheets
Checkout is handled by a secure third-party payment platform. Your download link arrives right after payment.
30-day guarantee
Read it. Use it. Or get your money back.
If the plan isn’t worth $19 to you, reply to your receipt email within 30 days of purchase and you’ll get a full refund. No forms, no questions, and you don’t need to send anything back.
This guarantee is in addition to any rights you have under consumer law.
Who’s behind this
About Hank Ridley
Hank Ridley is the plain-spoken host of the Hank Ridley channel, known for “If War Starts Tomorrow, Skip Bottled Water — Stockpile This Instead.” This guide takes the ideas from that video and turns them into a full plan you can follow.
In the interest of honesty: “Hank Ridley” is a pen name, and the host you see on the channel is AI-generated. The guidance in the guide stands on its sources, which are cited throughout.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
What exactly am I buying?
A digital guide in PDF format, 48 pages, including printable worksheets. It’s a download — nothing is shipped to your house.
How do I get it after I pay?
Right after checkout, the payment platform gives you a download link, and usually emails it to you as well. Save the PDF to your device so you have it offline.
Can I read it on my phone or tablet?
Yes. A PDF opens on any phone, tablet or computer. Because the guide is meant to be used when the power is out, we recommend printing it, or at least the worksheets and the First Hour card.
Can I print it?
Yes. The worksheets are designed to be printed and filled in by hand. Print the whole guide and keep it in a binder by the pantry.
Do I need a generator or freeze-dried food?
No. The whole point of the plan is to skip those. It’s built around ordinary pantry staples, simple water storage and keeping people warm, not houses.
Is this about guns or bugging out?
No. This is a stay-at-home plan for water, food, warmth and safety. There is no weapons or tactical content.
My family is bigger or smaller than average. Will it work?
The water table and the 14-Day Farmhouse Pantry are scaled for households of 1 to 6 people. If you have more, you can add the per-person amounts together.
Where do the numbers come from?
The figures come from public guidance by the CDC, FEMA/Ready.gov, USDA, EPA and the American Red Cross. The sources are cited in the guide.
Is this medical advice?
No. It’s general preparedness information. If anyone in your household has medical needs, such as medication, oxygen or a special diet, talk to your doctor or pharmacist about your plan.
Can I get a refund?
Yes. If it isn’t worth it to you, reply to your receipt email within 30 days of purchase for a full refund. No questions asked.
Don’t buy another thing. Get the plan.
Fourteen days of water, food and warmth for your family, built one weekend at a time from ordinary groceries and what’s already in your house.
Get Skip & Stockpile · $19 →Instant PDF download · 48 pages · printable worksheets