Last reviewed 31 October 2026
Ready means more than supplies
This site is built on a simple idea: the time to prepare is before you need it. Most families apply that to water, food, and power — and stop there.
But think about what a bad week actually looks like now. Your money is in apps. Your IDs are photos in a cloud drive. Your insurance, mortgage, medical records, and family photos live behind logins. And the moments when you're most exposed are the moments this site exists for: after a disaster, your personal information passes through aid applications, insurance claims, hotel desks, and contractors — and fraud spikes every time. Identity thieves know it, even if families don't plan for it.
So run this checklist the same way you'd run the calculator: once, carefully, in the right order. It takes an evening. It is based on a five-step framework shared by JJ Englert, expanded here with what each step actually involves — and each step links to a full guide if you want the deep version.
The five steps
1. Freeze your credit at all three bureaus. A credit freeze stops anyone — including you, until you lift it — from opening a new card, loan, or account in your name. It's free by law, it doesn't touch your credit score or your existing accounts, and it takes about ten minutes per bureau. This is the single highest-value step on the list. → Full guide: Freeze your credit
2. Put limits on your credit cards. A freeze protects your name; limits protect the cards you already have. In each card's app, set a spending limit just above your normal monthly use, turn on an alert for every transaction, and lock any card you rarely use. If a card number leaks, a limit is the difference between a bad afternoon and a drained account. → Full guide: Put limits on your cards
3. Kill old API keys and cap your spend. If you use AI tools, run a website, or sell anything online, you may have API keys — passwords for software — scattered across dashboards and files. Old, forgotten keys are unlocked side doors. Delete the ones you don't use, cap your spending at the account level, and treat any key that was ever pasted into a chat, a document, or a code repository as already leaked. → Full guide: Kill old API keys
4. Unshare everything. Any file shared “with anyone who has the link” should be treated as already found — because a link can be forwarded, guessed at, or left behind in an old email. That includes the exact documents your emergency plan depends on: ID photos, insurance papers, tax files. Inventory what's link-shared, keep a deliberate short list of what truly has to stay that way, and move everything else to invite-only. → Full guide: Unshare everything
5. Run a personal security audit — then repeat it monthly. The last step turns one evening of cleanup into a habit. Once a month, review the last 30–60 days: sign-ins you don't recognize, password and 2FA changes, accounts you forgot you connected, unfamiliar charges (including tiny test charges), and email forwarding rules you didn't create. It's supply rotation for your accounts — the same discipline, applied to a different shelf. → Full guide: Your monthly security audit
Do it in order, do it this week
The order matters: the freeze is fast, free, and blocks the worst outcome, so it goes first. The audit goes last because it only works once the obvious doors are already shut. Most of the five steps are one-time fixes; only the audit repeats.
A family that stores ninety days of water but leaves its bank logins, credit file, and ID documents open has prepared for the storm and not the week after it. Ready is ready — finish the job.
→ Run your own numbers: the calculator
Sources: Federal Trade Commission — consumer.ftc.gov (credit freezes and fraud alerts) · JJ Englert's original five-step checklist (x.com/JJEnglert)