You’ve sorted everything. Except this

You've got a better deal on your electricity, lower fees on your super and a cheaper premium with better cover for your health insurance. Maybe you've added some shares or an investment property to your portfolio. And you finally got around to updating your will. All great. But here’s the question nobody asks: if you died tomorrow, could the people you love actually find any of it? Your accounts, your passwords, which policies exist, who to call first? Or would they be searching your inbox at 11pm, grieving and guessing, while the direct debits kept coming out of an account they cannot reach?

This is the gap even the most organised women leave wide open. We make plans, create structures and organise files but we rarely think how anyone would find it without us. So much of our planning remains in our head. And when loss does arrive, society defaults to flowers, a sympathy card and the odd message, "How are you holding up today?". Kind and thoughtful but none of it tells a grieving person which super fund to call or where the will is kept. The people left behind don't just grieve. They become detectives, piecing a whole life back together from paperwork, chasing passwords and policies while the bills keep arriving for accounts they cannot yet touch.

I know this gap because I have lived it.

My husband died in an accident when I was 29 years old and 17 weeks pregnant with our triplets. His income stopped that day. I was on a casual contract during COVID and had to take personal leave straight away, which meant no pay from me either. Two incomes to none, overnight. More than 90 bunches of flowers arrived and died in front of me. The lasagnes and home cooked meals kept me going. I was grateful for all the love, but none of it told me what to do next.

Underneath the grief was a mountain only I could carry. A funeral to plan. A will to execute. Super to claim. Accounts to close. A mortgage to pay. And constant requests for a death certificate I didn't have yet.

As a project manager, I did what came naturally to me. I created a spreadsheet. It grew to 497 rows. Every task, every contact and every deadline that does not wait for grief. My foggy grief brain meant I couldn't remember the conversations I'd had or the things I still had to do. That spreadsheet held everything together so I didn't have to, and it became Yellow Falcon.

Here is what has stayed with me. I already knew much of what most people have to go hunting for. I didn't just have visibility. I understood our finances, I knew which accounts existed and why, and where the will was kept. I knew where the spare car key was, which tradies had come to do odd jobs around the house, where the main switch was in the fuse box and when the car was due for its service. Not everyone has that. And even though I had the knowledge, I still spent hours and hours, night after night searching for information about who to contact and in what order, cobbling it together from scratch at the worst possible time. It was fragmented and far harder than it ever needed to be. If it was that hard with everything in my favour, imagine doing it with nothing.

Yellow Falcon is the trusted resource for navigating the practical realities of life after loss. We are not financial advisers, counsellors or lawyers, but we do have a list of trusted people for when you need them. What we give you is the map for the moments no one prepares you for: what to handle, what can wait, who to call and when. So far, the work has been endorsed by funeral directors, grief counsellors and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). We help people who are grieving, the people who love them and want to help, those getting their affairs in order before anyone needs them to, and the organisations holding staff through loss.

You cannot grief-proof a life. You cannot plan away the pain. But you can make sure the people you love are never left untangling your admin in the worst weeks of their lives. That is not morbid. It is one of the most practical, loving things you will ever do.

For the women in this room, it comes down to one thing you can do now.

I've made a free resource for exactly this. Could They Find It? is a short, plain checklist of things worth documenting now, while you can, so the people you love are handed a map instead of a maze. It's more than just accounts and policies. It's the apps on your phone, the gym membership you intended on using and even the built-in lock on your suitcase. It's the things in your head that no one knows. And if you have children, it's everything the people caring for them would need to know from day one. Their routines, their medications, the little things that settle them. Spending a small amount of time now will save weeks of stressful searching later. It is the kindest piece of admin you will ever do for them.

Go to yellowfalcon.com.au/hwhw.

This is also why I am proud to sponsor Her Wealth Her Way. Real financial confidence is not just spreadsheets, insurance and investments. It is the right information and the right people at the right time, the educators, the advisers, rooms like this one. Yellow Falcon is the practical layer that sits alongside all of it, so the plans you have built can actually be found and followed when they matter most.

You have done the hard part already. Now it's time to protect it.

With all my heart,
Ashleigh, Founder - Yellow Falcon