This post is one in a series about tools to help you document and share your end-of-life wishes. I am not affiliated with the tools' creators and offer these summaries to help you choose a tool that is right for you.
About Good to Go!
Good to Go! is a death planning service created to make the paperwork of death easier. It was created by Amy Pickard, a woman who found herself mired in confusing paperwork while grieving her mother's sudden death in 2012. Pickard wished for an instruction booklet to help her with the legal, financial and practical details she needed to address. Good To Go! provides death planning consulting services, will help you host a death planning party and sells the Departure File, an instruction book you can leave your survivors .
What are the benefits of using the Departure File?
The Departure File provides a single, comprehensive paper repository for details about your legal documents, financial assets, social media accounts and monthly bills. Its fill-in-the-blank forms include information you may not have thought about but that will be helpful to your survivors after your death, for example, contact information for people to notify of your death.
There are several pages that address details for your funeral and burial or cremation. The booklet also addresses important items that typically are not covered in a will, such as your wishes for the care of any pets and the distribution of your personal belongings.
The medical information pages include some questions not addressed by other tools, such as whether you would like an autopsy to be performed after your death.
The Departure File has an eight page section for you to reflect on your life, achievements, happiest moments and biggest regrets. These pages may be difficult (and time consuming) to complete but will be highly cherished by your loved ones after you die.
Who should consider using the Departure File?
The Departure File is a good solution for you if you are not comfortable using online forms and want to make things easier for the survivors who will manage your affairs after you die. It addresses many practical details that are not included in other tools. The Departure File does not help you create a living will or health care proxy, but does provide a space to record where those documents are located. Because it includes contact information and other data that may change, those who use the Departure File should complete the forms in pencil so they can be updated.
How to get the Departure File
You can purchase a paper copy of the Departure File on the Good to Go! website for $100. https://goodtogopeace.org/