The £30 supermarket 72-hour kit

The premise: preparedness at own-brand prices

The Government's emergency kit list survives contact with a budget remarkably well, because most of it is ordinary groceries. This page builds the 72-hour version for one to two people from a single supermarket shop — own-brand throughout — for roughly thirty pounds. Prices below were checked in July 2026 and will drift; treat them as bands, not promises.

One honest carve-out up front: the battery or wind-up radio on the official list isn't really a supermarket item — the realistic cheapest routes are a basic battery FM radio from Argos (around £8) or a wind-up model online (from around £13). It's listed here as the add-on that takes the kit from ~£30 to ~£40, not hidden inside the headline.

The trolley, item by item

Water — 12 litres of own-brand still water (the 2L and 5L bottles are cheapest per litre): £3–5. That's the three-day drinking minimum for one, or a tight allowance for two alongside tap-filled containers.

Food that needs no cooking — six mixed tins (beans from ~27p, soup ~60p, tinned meals £1.20–2): £4–6.50. Two litres of UHT milk: £2–2.70. Two multipacks of cereal bars: £2–3. Dried fruit and nuts, two bags: £3–5. That's three days of unexciting but complete eating for one to two people, all of it rotating happily into normal life afterwards.

Light and power — a basic LED torch (supermarket floor price £1.25–1.50, better ones to £5) and a 4-pack of AA batteries (£1.75–3): call it £3–8 depending on how far you upgrade the torch.

Health and hygiene — own-brand plasters and antiseptic (£2.75–3.50) and a big pack of wet wipes (55p–£1.20). The first-aid shelf won't match a proper kit, but it covers the basics until you buy one.

The receipt, and what it buys

Totalled honestly: the basket lands between about £20 and £36 depending on supermarket and choices, with a realistic middle of £26–30. For that you have the official list's core — water, no-cook food, light, first aid basics, hygiene — sitting in a cupboard, purchased in one shop, with nothing exotic and nothing wasted.

What it doesn't buy: the radio (add £8–13 from Argos or online), a power bank if you don't already own one (£15–25 buys a decent 20,000mAh), and the personal layer no shop can sell — your medicines, copies of documents, a little cash. Add those over the following paydays and the kit is genuinely complete.

The two upgrades worth making later

First, the torch situation: the £1.25 supermarket torch works, but a £15–25 LED torch or head torch is brighter, tougher and runs longer — and a torch per adult is the real standard. Second, a proper first aid kit (£15–25 buys a BS 8599-1-informed kit) replaces the plasters-and-antiseptic stopgap.

Beyond that, the upgrade path is the one this site maps everywhere: a power bank, then a wind-up radio, then — if your budget and needs justify it — the power station tier. None of it invalidates the £30 start; it builds on it.