Your Local Cassandra

Your Local Cassandra

Are Survival Food Buckets Worth It?

A serious take.

Jessica's avatar
Jessica
Nov 20, 2025
∙ Paid
Photo by Moon Moons on Unsplash

At a time when Americans are struggling to buy basic groceries, Costco is selling a year’s worth of emergency food buckets for about $3,000.

It’s designed to feed one person.

If you could actually live on survival food for a year, maybe it wouldn’t be a bad deal. Can you, though? Several companies sell emergency food kits. There’s Readywise, 4Patriots, Ready Hour, Augason Farms, Mountain House, Backpacker’s Pantry (Vegetarian), Good-to-Go (Vegan), and Valley Food Storage. We could go on, but those are the big ones. The cost runs anywhere from $100 to $200 per bucket these days. One bucket feeds one person for a couple of weeks.

Various prepper channels push these buckets hard. Others trash the idea of food buckets in general, even if they have deals to promote certain brands. It sounds appealing to have a year’s worth of food ready to go that lasts for decades. They cook up quick. All you need is water and some camping cookware (and heat).

Every now and then, you hear someone bragging about stocking an entire basement or bunker with these things, enough to last decades.

Are they worth it?

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