Posted by on December 11, 2008
Sometimes it makes more sense to buy certain funeral items from someone other than the funeral home handling your service. These other suppliers usually offer more reasonable prices than the typical funeral home.
Make an effort to locate other sources that sell funeral merchandise and see what they charge for the items you’re thinking about buying. Even if you don’t buy from someone else, just knowing that less-expensive options exist can often get your funeral home to give you a big discount to remain competitive.
Savvy families do this all the time and end up saving hundreds – and sometimes thousands – of dollars on caskets, urns, and headstones.
I give my clients a simple chart that shows them where to find various merchants that may be worth considering. I also give them a handy “grade sheet” that compares each of the popular Internet suppliers of funeral merchandise. This grade sheet makes it easy to locate lower-priced merchants and determine how the competition stacks up in terms of prices, selection, and quality.
When you use this information you’ll be able to make sure you get a GREAT deal on everything you are forced to buy.
You get both the list of recommended merchants and the handy grade sheet for free as part of the Funeral Saver’s Kit.
Posted by on December 8, 2008
Choosing certain types of funeral or cremation arrangements can eliminate many unnecessary funeral costs. Choosing wisely will prevent you from being charged for lots of “extras” no one told you about.
Since most families do not plan funerals very often, they usually don’t realize what’s included (or excluded) in the decisions they make. All too often a family simply agrees to the funeral director’s recommendations – only to end up surprised when their final bill is 30% higher than expected.
Even though many of the goods and services offered by a funeral home are priced on an individual basis, certain selections you make will automatically trigger additional costs. Unfortunately, most families don’t find out about these additional costs until after the service is over and they get the funeral director’s bill.
Here’s an example of how this works:
When meeting with the funeral director he might suggest a “traditional” funeral priced at $500. You agree….thinking $500 isn’t too bad. However, what you didn’t realize (and what the funeral director failed to mention) is that a “traditional” funeral also means that you will need:
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embalming (another $500)
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casket ($1,500)
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viewing or visitation ($500)
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cemetery space ($1,000)
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open & closing the grave site ($750)
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outer burial container ($1,000)
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headstone ($1,500)
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announcing the funeral in a newspaper ($250)
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use of a hearse ($200)
….so when the funeral director said the “traditional” funeral service costs $500 – he meant it would cost $500 to hold the actual 45 minute funeral service. But, by choosing a “traditional” funeral service, you were also agreeing to purchase all of the other things that are required to conduct a traditional funeral.
In this case your total cost would be closer to $7,700. This is a realistic example (the average traditional funeral costs nearly $8,000). Simply understanding what’s included in the decisions you make can help you avoid such a nasty financial surprise.
You can use a resource like the Funeral $aver’s Kit to learn about the types of funeral, burial, and cremation arrangements from which you can choose. Section 2 of the kit identifies costs associated with each service and clearly shows which expenses will be included (or excluded) based on the choices you make.
Generally, your least expensive options (in order of increasing price) are:
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medical donation
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direct cremation
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immediate burial
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cremation with service
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traditional funeral
Click to learn more about the Funeral Saver’s Kit.
Posted by on November 3, 2008
As the economy has slowed, more families have been forced, for financial reasons, to choose cremation instead of body burial when someone they care about dies.
A typical traditional funeral followed by body burial in a cemetery costs between $7,000 and $10,000. A typical funeral service that results in the body being cremated runs approximately $3000. While the trend towards cremation will likely continue in the near future, there are things you can do to make body burial more affordable.
One of the simplest things a family can do is choose a service level known as an “immediate burial”. With an immediate burial the body is taken directly from the place of death (or morgue) to the cemetery. Normally, the body stops at the funeral home just long enough to secure the death certificate and burial permit (and for the family to buy a cemetery plot if they don’t already own one). No funeral ceremony is held at the funeral home.
The family can still choose to hold a memorial service elsewhere (e.g. at their church – often for free). This would reduce funeral expenses enough to allow the family to bury the deceased in a cemetery for about what it would cost to hold a typical cremation service at a funeral home.
Forgoing services at the funeral home will usually allow you to reduce or eliminate these costs:
· Funeral ceremony
· Viewing or visitation ceremony
· A nicer, more elaborate casket
· Embalming
· Other body preparation (e.g. makeup and hairdressing)
By choosing an immediate burial followed by a memorial service at your church you can realistically reduce the funeral home’s bill from about $7,500 to about $3,000. There are actually quite a few things you can do to reduce the costs associated with both body burial and cremation. It pays to learn a little bit about the prices and options available in your area.
Learn more about affordable burial options.
