When my grandparents passed, I watched my parents spend weeks trying to reconstruct their lives on paper. Where the accounts were. Who the attorney was. Whether there was a will and where it was kept. My parents are organized people. That wasn't the problem. The problem was that nobody had ever written it down in one place, and now they needed it all at once, during the worst stretch of months they'd had in years.
I was in my thirties then. I had two kids of my own. I remember thinking: I am going to make sure this never happens to them. So I started making a document. A simple one -- the information anyone who loved me would need to find, all in one place. I kept refining it. I shared it with a few people. They asked for copies.
That document eventually became the Mini Emergency Binder.
The problem isn't that people don't care. It's that there's no obvious moment to sit down and collect all of this -- until there is, and by then you're in the middle of something hard and the last thing you need is a scavenger hunt. These things need to be done in advance, when nothing is wrong.
I built Kept & Known to give people a quiet, low-stakes way to get organized. Not an app that requires a subscription. Not a binder kit that costs $45. Just printable forms -- thoughtful ones -- that you download, print, and fill in at your own pace.
What I make
Right now, one product: the Mini Emergency Binder. Fourteen pages of fillable forms covering emergency contacts, medical information, insurance, and document locations. Designed to live in a kitchen drawer, a car, or a binder on the shelf -- somewhere that anyone in your family can find it, not just you.
More is coming. I'm working on a Digital Safety Kit for the passwords and online accounts that no one else knows about. And a full LifeFile Binder -- a complete family records system for people who want to do this properly, once. When those are ready, I'll let people on my list know first.
Who this is for
Mostly people who have watched a parent age and realized how much information lives only in that person's head. Or people who are the organized one in their family and want to make sure someone else can step in if needed. Or people who are just quietly aware that they haven't done this yet and would like to.
These forms are not complicated. That's the point. You don't need to hire anyone or learn a system. You just need to write it down somewhere the right people can find it.
About the shop
Kept & Known sells through Etsy. All purchases are instant digital downloads -- you get the PDF, you print it, you're done. No account is required on my end. No subscription. No upsell.
I'm Joanna Reid. I'm 47, a mother of two, and the kind of person who finds comfort in a well-organized drawer. This shop exists because I've seen what happens when families don't have their paperwork in order -- and because I didn't want my kids to ever have to figure that out on my behalf.
If you have questions, the contact page is the place to reach me.