You’re not imagining it…
Things have been building behind the scenes for decades. The 1970s oil shocks cracked the foundations of the post-WW2 settlement – that thing that had meant your parents or grandparents could afford to buy a house, hold down a job for life, trust that the NHS would be there when they needed it, and reasonably expect things to get a bit better each year.
But then Thatcher sold off the water, the energy, and our public transport on the cheap. Then 2008, when the banks crashed and ordinary people paid for it. Then austerity. Brexit. Covid. The cost of living crisis. Every single time, the baseline dropped that bit further, and the life your parents or grandparents took for granted slipped further and further out of your reach.
It’s in the weekly shop that costs more but buys you less. The energy bill you dread. The NHS appointment you can’t get. The job that doesn’t feel as reliable as you need it to. The money that runs out long before the month does. And now, on top of all that, serious, credible analysts are calling what’s been unfolding since the US and Israel attacked Iran the worst energy and supply-line crisis in recorded history.
Nobody in charge is offering anything much more substantial than ‘keep calm and carry on.’ And the alternatives most people stumble across online are either doomsday apocalypse fantasies dressed up as survival guides, bushcraft videos with little relevance to life in a Bristol flat or a Manchester terrace, or aspirational good-life content that assumes you’ve got a massive garden and a budget to match.
Hard Times Ready is about filling that gap.
It’s about real, honest analysis of what’s happening in the world and how it’s likely to impact on you and your household, rather than scooting deep down doom-filled survivalist rabbit holes. It’s about sharing practical skills, strategies and systems that anyone can adopt – wherever they are and whatever their budget – to get through genuinely tough times more intact. It’s about growing food and eating well, keeping warm and well. But it’s about the inner work too, and the community around you, because who you’re able to be when things get hard, and who you’ve got alongside you, matter just as much as what’s in your garden, your cupboards or your wallet.
Who’s behind this?
I’m Sally. I’ve spent over thirty years thinking about what it actually takes for ordinary people to keep going – and hold onto their heads and their humanity – when the world keeps making things harder.
I studied psychology, economics, politics, and social policy, and then permaculture opened a door to a completely different way of understanding how the world works. Everything I’ve done since has been some version of the same thing: finding ways to make things work with what’s available, for people who need it.
Teaching kids at an inner-city school how to grow food. Raising my own children on a tight budget, with resilience as a conscious value. Working in mental health. Training as a resilience practitioner and transformation coach. Nearly two decades helping create the magic at Glastonbury – feeding thousands of people cheap, nutritious food cooked over wood fires. Years of foraging from hedgerows, fermenting things in jars, making wine in five-gallon buckets and giving most of it away.
Hard Times Ready is me putting all of that to use at a moment when it feels more urgently needed than ever.
Working with me
Resilience isn’t just about what’s in your cupboards, your fuel tank, or your bank account – it’s easily as much about who you are, and how you cope, if or when life gets genuinely hard.
I work with a very small number of one to one clients at any one time – that’s not some bog-standard marketing ‘manufactured scarcity’ ploy, it’s just an honest boundary based on what I’m able to fully commit to.
I work with clients to build resilience in all the ways that count: the practical stuff – your home, your food security, your finances, your energy – as well as the inner resilience that determines how you actually hold up when the pressure is really on. Your values, your relationship with uncertainty, and who you’re capable of being when curveballs knock you for six. All of it specific to you, at your pace, starting without judgement from where you actually are right now.
If you’re curious, a free half-hour conversation is the place to start.