Go Bags for Broke Folks
You’ve seen them — the slick prepper kits, marketed with military fonts and freeze-dried fear. They come in sleek black backpacks, promising 72 hours of survival, sometimes longer, with “gourmet” MREs, paracord bracelets, hand-warmers, and overpriced hope.
$349.95 — discounted from $899 — “LIMITED SUPPLY.”
Meanwhile, over on 7th Street, someone is trying to stuff a flashlight, dollar ramen, and an empty prescription bottle into a plastic grocery sack. Welcome to the real emergency kit economy.
The Disaster Industrial Complex
Emergency preparedness has become big business. Not just Red Cross pamphlets and bottled water — we’re talking full-blown, VC-funded, Instagram-pumped consumerism. Search “go-bag” on Amazon and you’ll find pre-packed “Elite Crisis Packs” with names like Survive-Pro, TactGear, or Alpha Responder.
Some come with portable solar panels. Others include collapsible fishing rods. A few have literal gold flakes sealed in envelopes — “just in case.”
And people buy them.
Because fear is profitable. Because disaster has become another vertical market. Because nobody wants to be caught with nothing — but most people already are.
Meanwhile, In the Real World
Take Shayla Harper. Single mom. Works part-time at a pharmacy in Baton Rouge. Her “go-bag” sits in the bottom of a chipped Ikea cabinet near her back door.
Contents:
A cracked iPhone charger
Half-used packet of wet wipes
Three granola bars (all peanut — her kid’s allergic, but it’s what was left at the food bank)
One mini flashlight
Expired Tylenol
A city bus map
She’s been through three hurricanes.
“I don’t need a tent that turns into a boat,” she says. “I need diapers. I need my kid’s inhaler. I need to not be forgotten when the floodwaters rise.”
Suspense: The First 5 Minutes
Here’s where the Zeigarnik Effect creeps in — the unfinished action that gnaws at your attention.
Because Shayla knows. And you know. And we all kind of know… we’re not ready.
Most people can’t afford to finish the list. First-aid kit? Maybe. Water purification tablets? Next paycheck. N95 masks? Not since 2020.
We start building our “just-in-case” kits — and then the price tags remind us that safety isn’t for everyone.
Which means: the thought stays unfinished. The action lingers.
And the next storm’s forming offshore.
“Affordable” According to Whom?
FEMA has a checklist. It’s been around for years. Food for 3 days. One gallon of water per person, per day. First aid kit. Whistle. Radio. Extra cash. Copies of important documents. Flashlight. Multi-tool. Medications.
Try buying all that on a minimum wage budget.
The average cost to fully prep one adult according to the list? Around $110–$150 minimum. For a family of four? Closer to $400.
If you live paycheck to paycheck — and over 60% of Americans do — that means your rent check goes toward granola bars and gauze pads.
So what happens? You pack what you can. You leave the rest to luck. Or God. Or FEMA, if they show up on time.
“Premium” Survival for the Premium Class
Now let’s talk about who gets to survive in style.
There are celebrity-endorsed bug-out kits with coffee grinders and night vision. Urban Escape Bags with $40 tactical gloves. Hell, there are even $8,000 underground panic rooms you can finance like a car.
Meanwhile, in East Cleveland, an elderly man is duct-taping a flashlight to a broomstick so he can wade through basement floodwater with a light source. He doesn’t need freeze-dried fettuccine Alfredo. He needs insulin that didn’t spoil when the power died.
The Great Prepper Lie
The prepper industry feeds off illusion — that you can buy peace of mind, that safety comes shrink-wrapped. But none of these fancy kits come with the one thing people actually need:
Access.
Access to reliable shelter. To unexpired meds. To real-time updates. To functioning infrastructure.
When the levee breaks, you’re not reaching for your $600 GoRuck pack — you’re texting your cousin to ask if his upstairs couch is still dry.
And that’s assuming you’ve got a phone signal, and that the battery didn’t die six hours ago.
So What Do Broke Folks Pack?
Let’s take stock. I interviewed 19 people living below the poverty line in high-risk areas (flood zones, wildfire regions, hurricane coasts). Here’s what their bags really include:
Ziplock bags of crackers and peanut butter
Recycled plastic bottles filled with tap water
Torn ponchos
Dollar store lighters
Small scissors
Crumpled printouts with family phone numbers
Lucky coins, prayer cards, one child’s drawing of a house untouched by fire
What don’t they pack?
Trust in systems
Extra shoes
Enough of anything
The Invisible Inventory
What’s wild is this: most disaster prep articles never mention poverty.
They assume a baseline — like you have a home, a car, a printer for your documents, a credit card to buy gas. They say “pack cash” as if everyone has some lying around. They say “drive to safety” like evacuation isn’t a luxury for the housed and mobile.
And so millions of people — the elderly, the disabled, the working poor — are erased before the storm even begins.
Preparedness as a Class Privilege
Here’s the quiet part no one says out loud:
Preparedness is sold as personal responsibility. But it’s a systemic failure passed off as your fault.
The government underfunds disaster prevention. Corporations price-gouge essential supplies. And when disaster strikes, media coverage inevitably blames the people who “didn’t plan ahead.”
We shame the unprepared while the billionaires helicopter to safety.
This is disaster capitalism — and the only thing heavier than the rain is the hypocrisy.
So What Now?
Here’s what real preparedness looks like:
Community tool libraries with prep gear
Free go-bag clinics with local orgs
Churches and mosques holding pre-storm packing nights
Public transit systems that don’t shut down the minute the sirens start
FEMA distributing prep vouchers, not just pamphlets
Until then, folks will keep building survival kits out of duct tape, love, and whatever the dollar store has left.
Because when the water rises, it’s not the fancy packs that save people — it’s the neighbor who knows your name.
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