View Full Version : Funeral expenses
This past week my father-in-law past away. He was nearly 90 years old and had been in failing health for some time.
My MIL and SIL have pretty much made all the arrangements. I would not second guess their choices or the money they have spent. Though I was surprised at the expense, even for cremation.
I think each family is different, but given your situation - what did you do to save costs on the funeral expenses and still maintained a dignified service?
Both my parents were adamant that there would be no funeral service, simply cremation. My siblings and mother did get together for my dad's burial of ashes but we did nothing for my mother and my sister buried the ashes. I went to see my mother two days before she died with armloads of flowers in February. We were at peace with each other and she was totally at peace with the world.
IMHO, if anyone wants to honour someone or express a gratitude for a life, do it when people are alive not after they are dead and cannot appreciate it.
Having said that, I do understand that funerals are really for the living to mourn rather than the dead. Perhaps some cultures demand a large funeral and lavish coffin but none of it makes sense to me.
Not to take this off-topic: This funeral cost issue has come up in our community as the funeral homes are angry about the demands of families who had an indigent relative die This means that the taxpayer pays the total tab. The remaining family is demanding at least one visitation, a full service and a more than basic coffin paid for solely by the taxpayers. The funeral homes state that the cost has risen from $2500 to $5000. Municipal council recently increased to only funding $4500. Neither I nor DH want any funeral beyond a simple cremation and yet we are having to pay for others.
It seems that like so many other things in life, funerals are filled with emotion and appearances.
My Dad's funeral cost $10,000 Cdn. a few years ago. He had already paid for the burial plot and marker. To cut costs my Mom used a "loaner" casket. Okay stop laughing. But Dad was going to be cremated and it seemed silly to pay a lot of money for an expensive casket just to burn it. Mom wanted a "viewing" so the funeral home loaned her a casket for Dad to be viewed in. Even that cost LOTS of money ($3,000 is sticking in my head but I could be wrong) but was a fraction of purchasing a coffin. I'm sure Dad would have thought that was very frugal of Mom. *grin*
For Hubby and I, we also want to be cremated. Whoever survives will keep the ashes of the other and then when the last one of us dies our kids have instructions to cremate the remaining spouse and put both sets of ashes together in one urn and give it a good shake. *grin* We will be buried in a local cemetery that we are the voluntary caretakers of. There won't be a cost to the burial. The kids can just dig a hole and plant us. Hubby and I have already picked out our "spot" at the cemetery and fenced it in with nice cedar fencing. We call it our "tomb with a view". While we haven't purchased a headstone, we have left instructions of what we would like the kids to buy from our estate money. Neither of us want a fancy service, just a family get together at someone's house.
It depends on what you mean by "dignified". Obviously some friends, relatives and the funeral industry tend to push the (expensive) frills obviously playing on the misleading belief that cost is equivalent to love and respect. The best way to avoid this is for the departed to have specified the budget for the funeral in the will, or pre-pay for it.
Many communities have simple, low cost funeral alternatives that are specifically budget-priced. Personally, I think many people would not want to burden their loved ones with high funeral costs, so such alternatives are dignified, especially if specified in the will.
There is much to be said for donating the body to a medical school or university. One can specify the donation in one's will, or the surviving family can do it. The deceased is used for study then usually is cremated and the ashes returned to the family at no cost. They can be interred, or scattered.
Benefits? Very low or no cost, and the deceased will contribute to the greater education of the medical community.
Something that I've seen only in the past few years is that some Orthodox and Episcopalian (Anglican) churches are having the wakes (viewing) at the church itself (casket in the middle aisle at the front). It saves some money (but I don't know how much) because you're not having the viewing at the funeral home. Viewing will be one day from, say, 3-8 or 4-9, and then another hour before the funeral service the next morning.
It's also not a sterile space such as at the funeral home, and since it's likely a place where the deceased spent much time, there's more of a "home" feel.
The length of the viewing has also decreased since I was a kid. When my great-grandmother died at 104 in June 1981, the viewing went on for three days. I remember very clearly since I was 11 and had to sit for three days at the funeral home since school was out for the summer. I was allowed to take books with me and I sat and read. I remember some relatives getting upset that I was reading, but what do they expect a kid to do for three days at a funeral home?
Now, the viewing is 4-5 hours one afternoon evening and maybe a bit before the funeral and that's it. Much more sane for the families, too, I'd think.
Well, my mother paid for the arrangements she wanted and that's fine, it's her money, and that's is done and over. It wasn't excessive and I really don't know how much it cost but it was the typical midwestern thing ALTHOUGH she had a pine box because she is Jewish and had to go into the ground immediately and without embalming.
But when it comes to her headstone which for some unknown reason she didn't pre-pay THAT will be a simple set-in-the- ground rectuangular stone with her name and birth date, death date. Because my borther and I are paying! No Taj Mahal of headstones, thank you very much which she felt compelled to do for my father. I disagreed but no one asked me. He would have liked a pine box and a cheapo iron marker, or would have been fine with cremation. Inexpensive was his watchword.
...There is much to be said for donating the body to a medical school or university. One can specify the donation in one's will, or the surviving family can do it. The deceased is used for study then usually is cremated and the ashes returned to the family at no cost. They can be interred, or scattered.
Benefits? Very low or no cost, and the deceased will contribute to the greater education of the medical community.
One of the modern day scams has been the selling of body parts by universities to commercial entities for experimental use. While I don't get easily skeeved out, I don't know that I could stomach knowing that the limbs of my loved one were hacked off and, for instance, used in crash tests. It happened. For myself I can easily say, yeah, whatever. I am dead, I don't care. But for my parents or DH ummm that gives me pause.
Do people have any input on funeral insurance? Which differs a bit from life insurance.
This is timely because I am planning a simple family reunion to celebrate my mother's life. She died just before Christmas in the dead of winter during crappy winter weather and there wasn't much of a service.
So I thought a theme party would be nice: people can come and eat sandwiches and look through the photo albums I've got that contain amoung other stuff evidence of BOTH of her marriages to my dad--cute story, they got married once when she was a minor, her parents made her annul t, and they got married again a year later when she was of majority age. I will ask people to come with examples of things Pat liked and things Pat didn't like. So I plan to smoke (she didn't like that!) and will hand out samples of her "goofy cake" (she liked that!). My brother will come with a stuffed cat (she liked cats) and will wear his NRA life time member button (she didn't like that!) ha ha and etc.
My DH and I have made plans to donate our bodies to science.
Anita
First of all, Greg, so sorry for your loss. Sounds like your FIL had a good, long life.
My MIL died last summer, while we were on vacation with her in Vermont. She had told us about a $20k death benefit she had from her former employer. We thought, great, that should be more than enough--lots of money to spare. The cost of everything came to just about $20k, maybe a little less.
Funny story: The day after she died, I dashed off a nice obit for her. My husband approved it, so did BIL. We were leaving Vermont to return for the funeral, but wanted to get the obit in asap. So we emailed it to the funeral home and told them to just put it in the paper. They said, do you want to get a cost first? And we said, no just run it. So he called to say that it was going to be 7.48. I thought, great--and I considered asking him to run it a second day.
Turns out, (boy, am I naive!!), the cost for the obituary was $748!!!!
Other extraneous costs were, hotels for close relatives (and us) because she had a burial plot in a different town, transportation from Vermont to Westchester, NY, a bagpipe player. It was $1500 just to open up the grave she's owned for decades. We paid the pastor extra, too, because he drove a couple of hours to travel ($350).
We also hired out a reasonable restaurant for after the funeral (again, because she lived her whole life in one place, but we live in another).
It's a lot more than I thought it would be, considering she already had the plot. But we didn't know she was going to die 300 miles from home, on vacation.
My dad donated his body to the local medical school, they cremated him when they were done and we did not get any ashes back. $25 registration fee.
I wanted to write his life story (abbreveated version) on his torso with a Sharpie so the students would know who he was, but I didn't as they would have refused to take him.
In the state he died (MO) only licensed personal can transport a body, he went by ambulance and my mom got a bill for $410. Geez! It's not like he was using the oxygen or anything.
iris lily
2-14-11, 12:18am
wow Catherine, that is awful. $20,000! But I realize that there were out of town expenses for several family members as well as restaurant expenses.
iris lily
2-14-11, 12:20am
A few years ago I called the local creatorium to find out their rock bottom price and it was $somewhere around $550, and htat included moving the body from the hospital. Fawn I remembered to ask that because I'd heard it was expensive.
Razz, you said it beautifully.
MY mother and father in law died this last year. Each had no service and a cremation. My brothers and I had mom's ashes taken back to Alaska for placing in the vault space overlooking her daughter. Very inexpensive but we felt it was what Mom would have wanted.
In fact, the funeral home FedExd her ashes to my brother up there.
We have had experience with "bad" funerals and did not want to be involved in one. I did go to a good friend's open casket service in October. She had a huge family and lots of friends. I did appreciate one last time to say goodbye but a simple memorial with her family and friends speaking about her would have been fine for us.
I know my parents have already told me what they want done, (cremation and we each get 1/3 of our parents) but not so much about a service. That is okay. My boyfriend has very specific plans, he doesn't want a party but he does want to be cremated and put in the plot with his son. That seems really important even though we know that we are not really 'together' being in the same plot it does give him comfort.
I just went to a funeral of a coworker and she has a large Spanish speaking family. They had some very nice touches. I appreciated that they had a video of her photos and some other thing that those of us who only knew her through work could enjoy. I don't know what it cost but it was very nice compared to just sitting there with a body and a family I couldn't speak with.
My mother was cremated. We had a small service at the funeral.cremation home for her local friends and a graveside service in her old home town for family. To ship her ashes to the pre-existing family plot was $15 FedEX; to ship a body would have been thousands.
DH donated his body to research. We got his ashes back about a month later, no charge for the cremation, and scattered the ashes, so there was no expense at all. We had a memorial service at our church and I put in maybe $40 toward refreshments.
smurfybabe
2-16-11, 11:02pm
I see the pre payment burial plans of the seniors I work with and they are usually between $7000 - $9000. I always complain to DH about the cost because that was as much as our wedding and the guests don't even get food!
Powered by vBulletin® Version 4.2.5 Copyright © 2024 vBulletin Solutions Inc. All rights reserved.