If You're Reading This

An emergency binder you fill in, and a guide that shows you exactly how, so the people you love are not lost if something happens to you.

If you were rushed to hospital tonight, or died, would your family know where your will is, which banks you use, who takes the dog, whether you wanted burial or cremation, or how to get into your phone? This book helps you write all of it down in one place, safely, in about four sittings.

It is for any adult in the US or the UK. You do not need to be old, ill or wealthy.

What makes it different

• Ordered for the person who opens it. Most planners sort things by subject. This binder's eleven tabs run in the order your family will need them: the first hour, the first day, the first weeks. A one-page Read me first sheet answers the first hour on its own.
• It teaches, then shows. Each tab has a chapter explaining what the page is for, what to write and where to find it, then shows the real page filled in by one of two invented people: Linda, a widow in North Carolina, and Graham in Wales, who lives with a partner he is not married to.
• Pointers, not passwords. The binder never asks for a password, PIN or full account number. It explains why, and the three safe ways to let your people into a phone or account: the services' own tools (Apple Legacy Contact, Google Inactive Account Manager, Facebook legacy contact), a password manager's emergency access, or a sealed envelope kept apart from the binder.
• US and UK side by side. Powers of attorney, wills, probate, advance directives, organ donation and the first steps after a death, with both countries' terms and rules. Every legal and official fact was checked against government and providers' own pages (listed at the back), in October 2026.
• It finds your gaps. A will that is missing, a pension that still names someone who has died, nobody named to make health decisions: the book shows how filling in the binder brings these to light, and lists the fixes.

What is inside the guide (42 pages)

• What a legacy binder is, who it is for, and how to use this one
• The night someone opens it: the questions a family asks, in order
• Two kinds of emergency (you are alive but cannot decide, or you have died) and who is in charge in each
• What a binder is not: how it differs from a will, a power of attorney and a living will
• Pointers, not passwords; three safe ways to pass on access; where to keep the binder
• A four-sitting plan with what to have next to you
• One chapter for each of the eleven tabs: Read me first, People, Who depends on me, Health and who speaks for me, Papers, The money map, Home and things, Digital life, Wishes, In my own words, Keeping it current
• The gaps a binder shows you, and telling your family it exists
• For the person holding the binder: the first days after a death in the US, and in the UK
• US and UK words side by side, and every source

The binder (28 pages)

A cover page, how to fill it in, and 26 fill-in pages behind eleven coloured tabs, ending with cut-out wallet cards. Print it and fill it in by hand, or type into it: the PDF has fill-in boxes you can type into in a free PDF reader such as Adobe Acrobat Reader or Preview on a Mac, then print. Every fill-in page has a "last checked" date.

What you download

• If You're Reading This (the guide, 42 pages, PDF, US Letter, full colour, with bookmarks)
• The binder, US Letter (28 pages, PDF, printable and fillable)
• The binder, A4 (the same 28 pages for A4 paper)

Good to know

• This book is general information, not legal advice, and the binder is not a will. It cannot give anyone authority to act for you; it tells you which papers do, and where to get them.
• The binder is designed to hold no passwords or full account numbers, but it is still private: the book explains where to keep it.
• The fill-in boxes store what you type in the PDF file itself. Keep that file somewhere as safe as your bank statements.
• This is a PDF download. No physical book or binder is shipped.