Free End of Life Planner

What is an end of life planner

An end of life planner is a single document that holds everything the people you love will need to find, decide, and act on if you can no longer tell them yourself. Some people call it a “when I die” file. Some call it an in case of death binder. The American Bar Association calls it a “life file.” What you call it matters less than the fact that one exists.

I’ll be honest about why I made this one. Most of what’s out there is either a physical book you have to buy, or a fillable PDF that lives on someone’s hard drive and quietly becomes obsolete. Neither pattern survives the years between when you fill it out and when it’s actually needed. So I built a free end of life planner you can fill out online, save in your browser, and print whenever you want a fresh copy of the binder.

What to put in an end of life planner

The short answer is: anything your family will have to figure out without you. The longer answer is fifteen sections, and you do not have to do them all at once.

Identity and the location of key documents

Your legal name, date of birth, marital status, and where each piece of identification lives. Not the numbers themselves — never write your full Social Security number or passport number into any planner, paper or digital. Just where the cards are kept. Same logic for birth, marriage, divorce, and military records.

The people who need to be reached

The executor of your will, your attorney, your accountant, your financial advisor, your insurance agent, your primary physician, your employer, anyone with power of attorney over your medical or financial decisions, and the family members who should be told first. This section pairs well with my contact list template if you want a separate everyday version.

Where your documents live

The will, the trust, the advance directive, the deeds, the titles. The planner does not store the documents themselves — it tells your family where the documents are and who has copies. This is the single most useful section if your family does not live in your home.

Financial accounts, debts, and recurring bills

Checking, savings, retirement, pension. Mortgages, loans, cards. And — the part that surprised me when I built this — every recurring subscription that will keep charging your accounts until somebody cancels it. Most planners skip the subscriptions section. It might be the most concretely useful one in here.

Insurance and digital legacy

Every policy with the agent’s name and how to file a claim. Every meaningful online account with instructions for whether to memorialize, delete, or transfer it. There is a hard rule about the digital section: never type a password into a planner. Store the passwords in a password manager and write down only the name of the manager and how to access it.

Medical wishes and advance directives

Whether you have a living will, who can speak for you, your DNR status, organ donation, your conditions and medications, the hospital you’d prefer. This planner does not replace a legal advance directive. It points to where yours lives.

Dependents, pets, and final wishes

Guardianship preferences, pet care, the disposition of your body (burial, cremation, green burial, donation to science), and the service you would want — or the one you would not want. The “please don’t” section is, in my experience, more useful than the “please do” one. People have strong opinions about things they don’t want at their own funeral and rarely write them down.

Personal property, legacy messages, and instructions for survivors

The specific items you want to go to specific people. The letters you want to leave behind. The values you want to pass on. And a short personal note to whoever opens the binder, plus a built-in checklist of what to do in the first 24 hours, the first week, the first month, and beyond.

How to print your end of life planner

To print, click the “Print my binder” button — you’ll find it at the bottom of the last section (called “Where This Lives”) in the sidebar navigation. You don’t have to complete every section first; the button works whenever you’re ready to print what you have. You can even print a blank life planner template is you prefer not to complete any of the sections online.

That button doesn’t send the pages to a printer directly. It generates a personalized PDF and saves it to your device’s downloads folder, the same way any file downloads. From there, open the PDF and print it the way you’d print anything else — File → Print, or Ctrl + P on Windows / Cmd + P on Mac. Choose letter size, portrait, single-sided if you plan to hole-punch and put it in a binder, and 100% scale.

The output is intentionally plain black and white, so it prints cleanly on a home printer without burning through color ink, and it’s easy to photocopy if you need a second copy for someone in the family.

If you don’t have a printer at home

You have two good options.

The first is to take the PDF to a print service. FedEx Office, Staples, the UPS Store, Office Depot, and most local print shops will print and bind it for a few dollars. Your local public library often prints for a small per-page fee too. You can send the PDF from your phone or bring it on a USB drive. Because the planner contains sensitive information, I’d stick with a professional service rather than a coworker’s printer — and if you’re emailing the file to a print shop, delete the sent email afterward.

The second option is to skip the printer entirely and keep the planner as a PDF. The digital version works just as well as a printed binder, as long as the people who will need it know it exists and can open it. Save the PDF somewhere safe: a password-protected file, an encrypted cloud folder, or a USB drive kept with your other important documents. Then do the one non-negotiable thing — tell at least one person you trust that the file exists, where it lives, and how to access it. Many families actually prefer the digital route because it’s much easier to update as your life changes.

If you’d like a matching cover for a printed binder, my free binder cover templates work well with this planner.

What this end of life planner is and isn’t

It is a free end of life planner that organizes information for the people who need it. It is not a will. It is not a trust. It is not an advance directive. Where your wishes need legal force, work with the right professional and store those documents in a place this planner points to.

It is also not a one-time exercise. The version you fill out today will be slightly wrong in two years, and significantly wrong in five. Build a habit of reviewing it once a year, or whenever something changes — a move, a marriage, a birth, a death, a new diagnosis.

How the planner works

Everything you type is saved to your browser automatically. Nothing is sent to me, to a server, or anywhere else. If you close the tab and come back tomorrow, your progress is still here. If you switch devices, use the backup button in the sidebar to export a small file you can carry over.

When you’re ready to print, the tool generates a personalized multi-page PDF — a cover page, a section for each part you filled in, a closing note, and a built-in instruction guide for whoever opens the binder. The print is plain black and white on purpose. This is a document meant to live in a folder for years.

If you want a cover for the printed binder, my binder cover templates page has a few you can swap in.

Where to keep your end of life binder

The most beautifully filled-out planner in the world is useless if nobody can find it. A fireproof safe works. A locked filing cabinet works. A specific drawer that you’ve told at least one person about works. What does not work is “I think it’s somewhere in my office.”

When you finish, the planner asks you to do one specific thing: tell someone. Not eventually — today. The person filling this out is the only one who knows where the binder lives. The whole point of the document falls apart if that information dies with you.

If you’d like a checklist for adjacent kinds of preparation, my checklist template hub has dozens.

Tips for the best end of life planner experience

Do it in pieces. The sections are independent. There’s no badge for finishing in one sitting, and most of us would burn out trying. Pick the easiest section first — Personal & Identity, usually — and let momentum do the rest.

Skip what doesn’t apply. Childless? Skip the dependents section. No pets? Skip pet care. The PDF gracefully omits sections you didn’t fill in, so the binder only contains what’s actually true about your life.

Use the “Please don’t” fields. They feel uncomfortable to write. They are the single most useful thing your family will read.

Update it. The first version will not be your last. Put a yearly reminder on whatever calendar you use, and treat it like a checkup.

Tell someone where it is. The most important step is the one that happens after you close this tab.

Who this end of life planner is for

For anyone who has ever cleaned out a parent’s house and thought, “I cannot believe I’m guessing about this.”

For anyone who has ever called a sibling to ask if they know the password to their late mother’s email.

For anyone who has ever paid a subscription for six months because nobody knew it existed.

For anyone who simply doesn’t want their grief to come with a scavenger hunt.

It takes longer than an evening and less time than you’d think. There is no right age to start. The right time is whenever you next sit down with twenty quiet minutes.

End of Life Planner FAQ

What is an end of life planner?

An end of life planner is a single organized document that holds the information your family will need to act on if you become incapacitated or pass away — identity records, key contacts, the location of legal documents, financial accounts, recurring bills, insurance, digital accounts, medical wishes, dependents, final wishes, personal property, and personal messages. It is non-binding on its own; it complements legal documents like a will or advance directive rather than replacing them.

Is this end of life planner really free?

Yes. The tool is free to use, free to print, and free to update as often as you want. There is no account, no email signup, and no paid tier. It is supported by display ads on the page.

Is my information private?

Everything you type stays in your browser and on your device. Nothing is sent to me or to any server. If you clear your browser data, you’ll lose what you’ve entered — so use the backup button in the sidebar to export a copy you can keep somewhere safe.

Can I download the end of life planner as a PDF?

Yes. The “Print my binder” button generates a personalized end of life planner PDF you can save or print. The PDF only includes the sections you’ve filled in, so you can start small and print again as you add more.

Is there a free printable end of life planner template I can fill out by hand?

Yes. If you’d rather work on paper, click “Print my binder” before you fill in anything online and you’ll get a blank template with every section’s prompts.

What’s the difference between an end of life planner and a will?

A will is a legal document that directs how your assets are distributed and who is responsible for carrying out your wishes — it must be properly executed to have legal effect. An end of life planner is an organizational document that helps your family find, understand, and act on everything else: where your will lives, who your attorney is, which accounts exist, how to cancel your subscriptions, what to do with your pet. Most people need both.

What is the best end of life planner?

The best end of life planner is the one you actually complete and tell someone about. Beyond that, look for something that handles the digital accounts and recurring bills sections seriously, includes prompts for messages to loved ones, prints cleanly, and is easy to update as your life changes.

How often should I update my end of life planner?

Once a year at minimum, and any time something material changes — a move, a marriage or divorce, a birth, a death in the family, a new diagnosis, a major financial change, or a switch of attorney or advisor.

Where should I keep my end of life planner?

Somewhere fire-safe, somewhere findable, and somewhere at least one person you trust knows about. A home safe, a locked filing cabinet, or a labeled folder in a specific drawer all work. The non-negotiable part is telling someone the location.

Should I include passwords in my end of life planner?

No. Store passwords in a password manager and use the planner to record the name of the manager and how to access it. The same rule applies to full Social Security, account, and license numbers — record the location of the documents, not the secret data itself.

Can I share my end of life planner with my family while I’m still alive?

You can, and many people do. Sharing it with the executor of your will and with at least one immediate family member is often the most useful step. You can also keep it private and tell only one trusted person where to find it — both approaches are fine, as long as someone knows.