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The Household Book

Free, and nothing is sold on this page

What to do when someone dies. Seven pages, in the order things need doing. Today is at the front, and today holds about six things.

The page appears right here, and arrives by email at the same moment.

Nothing else follows for a fortnight. Reply with the word stop and nothing follows at all.

Today, before you download anything

If you have just been told, this is the whole of today. Almost everything that feels urgent tonight is not.

  • Nobody needs an answer from you tonight. Anyone who says otherwise can wait until morning.

  • Tell the two or three people who should hear it from a person rather than a rumor.

  • If the death was at home, the doctor or the coroner comes first, before anybody else is called.

  • Ask the funeral home to hold off on decisions about the service. They will say yes.

  • Find the wallet, the phone and the keys, and put all three in one place you will remember.

  • Eat something. Drink some water. Sleep if it will come.

A page of The First Week: what to do today, in the order it needs doing.

What is in the seven pages

  1. TodayWho must be told, and who can wait. The three calls that cannot wait, with the numbers.
  2. TomorrowWhere the documents are, and which ones the funeral home, the bank and the county will ask for.
  3. This weekMoney that must keep moving: the mortgage, the utilities, the payroll if there is one.
  4. This weekInsurance and benefits to claim, in the order they pay out.
  5. Within a monthAccounts to close, subscriptions to stop, and the letter to send to each.
  6. Within a monthThe house, the car and the pets: what keeps running and who is doing it.
  7. WheneverThe letters, and everything that nobody has to do at all.

Things people get wrong in the first week

Cancelling accounts too early. A bank account closed before the direct debits are moved takes the mortgage down with it.

Ordering too few death certificates. Almost every institution wants its own copy. Ten is not too many.

Doing it alone. Most of this can be shared and almost nobody shares it.

Deciding about the service on the first day. Nothing about a funeral has to be settled tonight, whatever the first phone call implies.

This is not legal or financial advice

It is a list of what usually has to happen and roughly when, written for the United States. Probate, taxes and anything to do with a will are matters for a lawyer licensed in your state, and the pages say so wherever they touch one.

Who sends this

The First Week is the front of The Household Book, which people fill in for their own household so nobody has to work this out from scratch. These seven pages are given away on their own because the week they are for is not a week for buying anything.

If somebody you know needs this in a year, it will still be at this address.