What you keep

Your messages, memories, will and wishes.

Whereabouts is the note your family will use most. These are the other four: messages, the family history, the will and your wishes for the day.

Messages

Say it in your own voice. Or to camera. Or both.

Record on your phone or upload a file, pick the moment it opens and leave it with us. Re-record whenever you like.

Feature
Audio, video or a letter with a recording underneath. Up to ten minutes a message, as many as you like.
Advantage
Addressed to one person, a few or everyone. Opens when you chose, and not before a date you name if you like. Each person sees only what's theirs.
Benefit
They hear it from you, not about you. On the day it matters, in the voice they remember.

A video camera on a tripod recording someone seated in a living room — Three takes is normal. Keep the one with the dog in it.

The thing I'd say if I was there. Recorded on the back verandah, second take, the dog in the background.

Video, 2 min .. to Daughter .. opens on her 30th

The story of the watch, start to finish, in Grandad's voice. One false start left in on purpose.

Audio, 7 min .. to Grandson .. opens his 18th

The toast. Keep it short, they always said. I never did. Read the letter first, then press play.

Letter and video .. to everyone .. opens first Christmas

Family history

The shoebox, sorted. Every photo tied to the person it belongs to.

Draw the tree as far back as you know. Then hang the tin on it, person by person, dated when you know and guessed when you don't.

Feature
A family tree with a page for every name, living or not, and a place on each page for photos, letters and recordings.
Advantage
Everything is filed under the person it's about and under the thing too. Nan's boat story turns up under Nan and under the boat.
Benefit
The grandkids find Nan's wedding photo without knowing which shoebox it was in. The whole tree is handed on to whoever you name.

An open photo album and loose old photographs spread on a table — The shoebox, mid-sort. Everything in it ends up filed under a name.

The tree. Every name is a page, and every page holds what's been filed under that person.

Your will

Upload the will. Say who holds the signed one.

Scan it or photograph it. Share it with your solicitor now, read only, and take it back any time.

Feature
The signed will, the powers of attorney and the advance care directive, every page kept in order and dated the day you uploaded it.
Advantage
The everyday documents open on incapacity. The will opens on the day. The line that says where the original is sits at the top of the executor's list.
Benefit
Your executor has the solicitor's name on day one, not a guess in week three. When it changes, upload the new one.

A fountain pen resting on signed pages on a timber desk — The signed original. Say where it lives, then upload the copy.

When I'm gone

Who does what, and what I'd like on the day.

Name your executors and give each of them a job. Say what you'd like at the funeral, down to the music and who doesn't get the microphone. Change your mind any time. The last version wins.

Feature
Executors named and given jobs. The day written out, line by line. The obituary drafted by you, with the three things you'd like said and the two you'd rather weren't.
Advantage
It sits beside the will. Each person gets their own list the moment the last chapter opens, and nobody else's.
Benefit
Nobody has to guess what you'd have wanted. Nobody has to argue about it. Uncle Rob keeps to three minutes.

The day

Burial or cremation: Cremation. Ashes off the end of the pier at the beach we went to every January. Not in a cupboard.
Music in: Something with a bit of swing. Nothing weepy.
Music out: Whatever the grandkids are playing that year.
Readings: One. Short. Dad's poem, read by whoever can get through it.
Who speaks: My brother, then the neighbour. Three minutes each.
Who doesn't: Uncle Rob. I love him. Three minutes becomes forty.
Dress: Whatever you'd wear to the pub.
Afterwards: The wake at the house. Open bar, my shout. The good esky is in the shed, left of the bench.
The photo: The one from the boat, 1998, laughing. Not the passport one.
Budget: Enough. Not the mahogany one. I won't know.

The jobs

Job	Who	What they'll find waiting
Executor	Daughter	The will, the Handover checklist, the money map and this page.
Second executor	Son	The same set, in case she can't or won't.
Telling people	Darl	Who to call, in what order, and the words I'd use.
The dog	The neighbour	The vet, the medications, the postman situation.
The house	Son	The house manual, the alarm code, where the spare keys are.
The digital tidy-up	Grandson	The Shutdown List and the key to the password manager.
Speaking	My brother, then the neighbour	Three minutes each. The stories I've marked as safe to tell.

Every job is addressed like a note. Each person gets their own list on the day and nobody else's.

A checklist

What to put in first.

You don’t need all of it on day one. Start at the top and stop when you run out of afternoon.

Papers. Birth and marriage certificates, passport, licence, Medicare card. Where each original is.
The will and the legal papers. Your will and who holds the signed original. Powers of attorney and an advance care directive, if you have them, and who holds those.
Money. Bank, super, shares, insurance and loans. Which institution and who to call. Not balances or passwords.
The house. Property papers, the alarm code, the water mains, bins day, the plumber. What’s worth insuring, with photos.
Online. Which password manager you use and how your executor gets in. Accounts and subscriptions to close.
People and things. Who gets what, where it is and why. Photos with names. Letters and recordings for later.

Spare Key records where things are and what you’d like. Your will decides who legally inherits, and a power of attorney only works the way the law says it does. Keep passwords in a password manager.

Get your key

Open your vault today.

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