Open the bag.
Not later. Not this weekend. Go find it, wherever it is, in the hall closet or the garage shelf or the back of the coat closet behind the winter things, and unzip it on the kitchen table.
I already know what is in there. A flashlight with batteries that have been sitting in the contacts for twenty-six months. A packet of granola bars that turned to sand sometime last spring. Two liters of water in a bottle that has been in a hot garage through two summers. A phone charging cable for a phone you no longer own. And a small, folded card with your sister's old phone number on it, from before she moved.
None of that is a failure. That is what a go-bag does when it sits still. Preparedness is not a purchase. It is a practice, and practices need maintenance.
I spent more than twenty years in federal emergency management at FEMA and DHS, most recently as the official responsible for communication across FEMA Region 9, a jurisdiction of more than 51 million people across California, Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii, and the Pacific. In that job I watched families evacuate with bags they had packed with real love and real intention, and I watched them open those bags at a shelter and find that the intention had quietly expired.
The bag was not the problem. Nobody had told them the bag had a schedule.
The problem nobody names
We treat the go-bag as a one-time act of responsibility. You build it, you feel relief, you put it away. The relief is the point, and the relief is also the trap, because relief is what stops you from opening the bag again.
Here is the honest version. A go-bag is a living system with a maintenance cycle, exactly like the smoke alarm you test and the car you service. Almost everything inside it is on a clock. Some clocks run in months. Some run in years. Not one of them runs forever.
So we audit.
What expires, and on what schedule
Use this as your reference table. These are the general shelf-life windows for the categories that go in a household emergency kit. Your actual item always wins: read the printed date on the package first, and use this table for the things that carry no date at all.
| Category | Working replacement window | What tells you it is done | |---|---|---| | Self-filled water containers | 6 months | Cloudiness, container flex, any garage heat exposure | | Commercially bottled water | Printed best-by, generally about 2 years | Printed date, plastic taste, warped bottle | | Water purification tablets | About 5 years from manufacture | Printed date. Discoloration of the tablet | | Energy and granola bars | 6 to 12 months | Texture change, oil smell, hardening | | Canned high-acid foods (tomato, fruit, citrus) | 12 to 18 months | Printed date, any dent on a seam, any bulge | | Canned low-acid foods (beans, meat, vegetables) | 2 to 5 years | Printed date, seam damage, rust | | Infant formula | Printed expiration, no exceptions | Printed date only. Never improvise here | | Alkaline batteries stored loose | 5 to 10 years | Printed date, white crust, swelling | | Alkaline batteries left inside a device | Treat as 12 months | Corrosion on the contacts. This is the number one kit killer | | Lithium batteries stored loose | 10 years or more | Printed date | | Portable power bank | Recharge every 3 to 6 months | Will not hold a charge, case swelling | | Adhesive bandages and tape | 3 to 5 years | Adhesive slides off, wrapper seal broken | | Antiseptic wipes and alcohol pads | 2 to 3 years | Packet feels dry or light | | Hand sanitizer | 2 to 3 years | Printed date. Alcohol evaporates over time | | Over-the-counter medication | Printed expiration | Printed date, crumbling tablets, color change | | Prescription medication in the kit | Rotate at every refill | Printed date. Rotate, never stockpile past it | | Epinephrine auto-injector | About 18 months | Printed date, cloudy or discolored liquid | | Sunscreen | 3 years | Printed date, separation | | Glow sticks | 2 to 4 years | Printed date, brittle tube | | N95 or KN95 respirators | Check manufacturer date | Strap elasticity gone, crushed nose piece | | Duct tape | 3 to 5 years | Adhesive gummy or dried, roll will not release |
The twelve items most commonly dead
Across kits I have seen, these twelve fail more often than everything else combined. Check them first. If you have ten minutes and not twenty, check only these.
1. Batteries left inside the flashlight or the radio. Corroded contacts. 2. The portable power bank. Fully self-discharged and unable to take a charge. 3. Charging cables that no longer match anybody's phone. 4. Self-filled water from more than six months ago. 5. Granola and protein bars. 6. The paper contact card with outdated phone numbers. 7. Cash in denominations that no longer help you, or no cash at all. 8. Children's clothing that no longer fits the child. 9. Diapers, wipes, and formula sized for a baby who is now a toddler. 10. Prescription medication that expired or that the household no longer takes. 11. Copies of documents that changed: an expired passport photocopy, a lapsed insurance card, an old lease. 12. The manual can opener you meant to add and never did.
The twenty-minute audit
Run this twice a year. Anchor it to the two daylight saving time changes, the same weekend you test the smoke alarms, so the calendar remembers it for you. In 2026 that is the first weekend of November and the second weekend of March.
Set a timer for twenty minutes. Work in this order.
Minutes 0 to 3. Dump. Everything out of the bag, onto one flat surface. You cannot audit a bag with contents still inside it. This step feels wasteful and it is the step that makes the rest work.
Minutes 3 to 7. Three piles. Sort every item into KEEP, REPLACE, and REMOVE. Keep is in date and functional. Replace is expired or degraded and still needed. Remove is anything nobody in this household uses anymore.
Minutes 7 to 10. Power check. Pull every battery out of every device. Test the flashlight and radio with fresh cells. Store spare batteries in a labeled zip bag, never inside the device. Plug in the power bank and confirm it climbs past 50 percent.
Minutes 10 to 13. People check. Say each household member's name out loud and answer three questions for each one. Does the clothing in this bag fit them today? Is their current medication in here or on a written rotation list? Is anything they cannot function without represented in this bag? Include pets by name. Include the aging parent whose care you coordinate.
Minutes 13 to 16. Paper check. Replace the contact card with a current one. Confirm your out-of-area contact still has the same number. Refresh document copies. Count the cash and rebuild it in small bills.
Minutes 16 to 19. Repack and weigh. Heaviest items low and against your back. Water and light on the outside. Then pick the bag up and carry it the length of your house. If you cannot carry it comfortably for two minutes, it is too heavy for the day you will actually need it.
Minute 19 to 20. Write the date. Index card, permanent marker, date of audit, and the earliest expiration date now inside the bag. Tape it to the outside. Put the next audit on your calendar before you close the bag.
The part that matters
Twenty minutes, twice a year, is forty minutes. That is the entire annual cost of a go-bag that actually works on the day it is asked to.
You are not doing this because something terrible is coming. You are doing this because the people in your house belong to you, and maintaining the thing that protects them is an ordinary act of love. Prepared. Not paranoid.™
Open the bag this week. Set the timer. You are twenty minutes from ready.
Start here: the free 30-Minute Family Emergency Starter Kit at operationprepare.com. It gives you the base kit, the household contact sheet, and the audit card, so your next twenty minutes has a template to run against.
Brandi Richard Thompson is a former federal emergency management official. Operation Prepare is an independent business and is not affiliated with or endorsed by FEMA or the federal government.