🕛🕒🕕🕘🕛 Tempus fugit
Feb 5, 2024 15:00:59 GMT
Ozarks Tom, wildhorseluvr, and 1 more like this
Post by Jolly on Feb 5, 2024 15:00:59 GMT
Funerals. A financial event you need to plan for. There are some ways to cut costs.
1. Cremation. No embalming cost, no wake expense at a funeral home. If you are affiliated with a church, skip the Life Celebration ceremony at the funeral home, and have a ceremony at church. Or have a small, private ceremony at a place of your choosing.
2. Graveside service only. Typical rental for visitation and use of a funeral home chapel can run to almost $1000. Many families do a short graveside only ceremony.
3. Visitation and funeral at your church. Again, cuts out the almost $1000 of the funeral home. There are charges for funeral home personnel at the church.
4. Embalming. Check your state law, but if burial is done in a short (24 hours here) period after death and the casket is unopened, embalming is not required. Again, check your state law, but some states used to allow burial on private property by the family.
5. Pre-need Insurance. Inflation is a problem with funerals, just like any other service. What cost $7k a decade ago, is $12k today. Most funeral homes have pre-need insurance, which is a form of life insurance with the funeral home as beneficiary. If you have cash value in an old whole life policy and your family does not need the replacement income, you can use some of that for a specific pre-need policy, which can lock in your arrangements and costs.
Some pros and cons: www.policygenius.com/life-insurance/pre-need-life-insurance/
6. Monuments (tombstones). Many cemeteries that allow them, will let you place one well before death. Again, inflation has hit the monument business. Purchase your tombstone for your plot today, and have the death date added later.
7. Companion or vertical graves. If you are having to buy a plot or your preferred country church cemetery is running out of room, some married people are burying two people in one grave. The grave is dug deep enough to place one casket, then stack the other on top if it, when needed.
8. Walmart caskets or build your own. Yes, you can buy caskets at Walmart. Check local laws, but funeral homes are required to take the caskets, BUT if they are defective or if your homemade casket is shoddily built, they can legally reject it.
These are just some I thought of off the top of my head. I'm sure there are others.
1. Cremation. No embalming cost, no wake expense at a funeral home. If you are affiliated with a church, skip the Life Celebration ceremony at the funeral home, and have a ceremony at church. Or have a small, private ceremony at a place of your choosing.
2. Graveside service only. Typical rental for visitation and use of a funeral home chapel can run to almost $1000. Many families do a short graveside only ceremony.
3. Visitation and funeral at your church. Again, cuts out the almost $1000 of the funeral home. There are charges for funeral home personnel at the church.
4. Embalming. Check your state law, but if burial is done in a short (24 hours here) period after death and the casket is unopened, embalming is not required. Again, check your state law, but some states used to allow burial on private property by the family.
5. Pre-need Insurance. Inflation is a problem with funerals, just like any other service. What cost $7k a decade ago, is $12k today. Most funeral homes have pre-need insurance, which is a form of life insurance with the funeral home as beneficiary. If you have cash value in an old whole life policy and your family does not need the replacement income, you can use some of that for a specific pre-need policy, which can lock in your arrangements and costs.
Some pros and cons: www.policygenius.com/life-insurance/pre-need-life-insurance/
6. Monuments (tombstones). Many cemeteries that allow them, will let you place one well before death. Again, inflation has hit the monument business. Purchase your tombstone for your plot today, and have the death date added later.
7. Companion or vertical graves. If you are having to buy a plot or your preferred country church cemetery is running out of room, some married people are burying two people in one grave. The grave is dug deep enough to place one casket, then stack the other on top if it, when needed.
8. Walmart caskets or build your own. Yes, you can buy caskets at Walmart. Check local laws, but funeral homes are required to take the caskets, BUT if they are defective or if your homemade casket is shoddily built, they can legally reject it.
These are just some I thought of off the top of my head. I'm sure there are others.
