A family responsibility
One Sunday afternoon, five mugs of tea, the conversation everyone has been putting off. Two hours later the whole household has done it.
Five heads. Five maps.
Mum only
The family photo cloud, the nursery portal, the school WhatsApp.
Dad only
The mortgage account, the joint savings, the pension number.
Eldest only
The streaming bundle, the household Wi-Fi router login.
Middle only
The Steam account, the family Discord, the spare key location.
Youngest only
The pet insurance, the vet, what the dog actually eats.
No backup. No central map. That is most households, quietly, until the day it is not.
If any one of you goes silent
Day 1
Mum stops replying. The school cannot reach her. Nobody else has the portal login.
Day 7
A direct debit bounces. Nobody else knew the side account, the password, or which bank it sits with.
Day 30
A child passport renewal is missed. The paperwork was in her email, behind two-factor.
Day 90
The household has been firefighting for three months. Grief never got a chance.
Two hours on a Sunday now, or four months of firefighting later.
We learnt this the hard way
If the accident is the household, the witnesses you named inside it are caught in the same accident. The chain breaks at the worst possible moment.
Each of you names two trusted people from outside. A closest friend. A colleague. A sibling who lives elsewhere.
Why together
Your goodbye to your child is not your partner's goodbye. Your instructions about the business are not your eldest's. The point of doing this together is not to write the same letter twice; it is to make sure nobody at the table has to do it alone, later.
Each person writes their own goodbyes, in their own words. Nobody reads them but the person they were meant for.
Members never see each other's letters, recipients, or witnesses. Not even the person paying the bill.
Each person picks weekly, monthly, or quarterly. Each one runs separately. One person dropping off doesn't trigger anyone else.
How a household Sunday goes
Someone makes the tea.
One person creates the household account at £18 a month. That person is the organiser. They pay the bill, nothing more.
Everyone signs up.
The organiser sends a link to each member. Each member creates their own account. Four invites included; more cost £4 a month each.
Each person writes what only they know.
Letters to specific people. Where the spare key is. The bank PIN nobody else has. What you want said at the funeral. Anything you would not want them to have to guess.
Each person names two witnesses, outside the household.
Closest friends. A colleague. A sibling who lives somewhere else. Never another member of this household. If the accident is the household, witnesses inside it are caught in the same accident. We learnt this one the hard way.
One person picks the successor.
If the organiser ever stops responding, the successor steps in: take over the whole household, or just keep their own seat. Thirty-day window. No fight, no admin, no court.
What members see about each other
What the organiser sees
What the organiser cannot see
What it costs
Less than three coffees a month for the entire household. Add or remove seats any time, from your dashboard. Or, if you would rather pay once and never think about a renewal, become a Founding member for a single payment, no renewal, forever.