Most of us hate to think about planning our own funeral but it is an inevitable part of life. My mother recently passed away and she had everything planned out – location, pallbearers, casket, plot, music, scripture, dress, headstone….She was 92 when she passed away and she had planned her funeral ten years earlier and talked to the family about the plans and had everything written out. She made it clear what she wanted. It sure made it a lot easier on the family when the time came.
On the financial end of funeral planning, experts suggest you preplan, but don’t prepay. You don’t know that the money will be in a safe investment or that the funeral home will still be in business.
Shop around as prices for caskets and funerals can vary by thousands of dollars, even in the same city. You can purchase a casket online or elsewhere at a discount and the funeral home has to accept it. If they give you a runaround on accepting it, you can report them to the Federal Trade Commission (or threaten to report them and they may change their mind). Also don’t purchase a “protective” rubber seal for the casket – these are just another way for a funeral home to overcharge you.
Consider having everything at your place of worship rather than at the funeral home which will also save you money. Make it even simpler by going the cremation route. That is what I am planning on doing. When I see all of the space being taken up by cemetaries where will it end? If everyone continues to take up at least 6 foot of space when they die and old cemetaries can’t be dug up as they are sacred, where will there eventually be space to live???
