Memorial Service & Bereavement Information Center

Prepaid funerals have gotten a bad rap lately, mostly due to unscrupulous funeral directors and sneaky prepaid plans with hidden costs. And when you think about it, it’s scary to drop money now on something that won’t happen until after you’re gone. It’s a tremendous act of faith.

Yes, prepaid funerals can be iffy, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t preplan one. Preplanning your funeral means making all the tough choices ahead of time and providing your surviving family members with a clear road map they can follow to ensure your wishes are carried out. Preplanning your funeral can spare your loved ones stress during their time of grief and give them the peace of mind that comes from knowing you would have been happy with your memorial service. Most of all, though, preplanning your funeral can save you and your family money. Here’s how:

Decisions are made with a calm and level head.

In their time of grief, families are at their most vulnerable. The vast majority of people don’t want to be planning a funeral at this time – they’re busy trying to absorb the loss of a loved one. Thus, they’re less able to make sensible, rational decisions and more likely to make choices based on emotion. This makes it easier for funeral directors to sell them on more elaborate coffins, headstones and other services they don’t need and can’t afford.

Loved ones at this time are also more likely to pay unnecessary costs for convenience’s sake, such as buying a funeral package instead of trying to save money by putting all of the necessary elements together themselves. When you preplan your own funeral, you can take care of all these elements yourself, without the emotional duress.

You have the leisure to shop around for the best deals.

Families dealing with the unexpected death of a loved one don’t have a lot of time to shop around for the cheapest funeral and burial services. In the midst of grieving, tying up the deceased’s affairs, and notifying friends and family, they’re more likely to put the funeral in the hands of the first funeral director they can find. In a sense, funeral directors have become a one-stop shopping center for funeral items, and the bereaved often pay a premium for this service.

Funeral homes are required by law to accept funeral items purchased by outside suppliers, without tacking on any additional handling fees. For example, you can save 300-500 percent by ordering a coffin from a wholesaler. However, this is far more likely to happen if you preplan your own funeral rather than leave your loved ones to plan it after you’re gone.

Funeral preplanning tips to save you money:

If you do decide to plan your own funeral, keep the following cost-saving tips in mind.

• Don’t spend money on casket protection features. No matter how much you spend on your casket, your body will decompose. Gaskets, seals and liners can’t stop the body’s natural decomposition process, so don’t pay extra for them.
• Buy coffins, flowers and other items yourself. According to FTC regulations, consumers have the right to purchase funeral merchandise from direct suppliers without paying additional fees to the funeral home. If nothing else, order a casket factory direct; funeral homes often add a 300-500 percent markup on coffins.
• Choose direct burial or cremation. If you don’t want to have a viewing, you can save money by opting to have the body buried or cremated immediately following death. The memorial service can then be held at a later time and date.
• Partner with your church or a memorial society. Many religious organizations offer their members discounted funeral products and services. Memorial societies are the secular equivalent; they are “buying clubs” that save you money through quantity discounts.

Preplanning your own funeral isn’t an easy task to tackle. No one wants to think about their own death. Instead, think about the time, stress and money you’ll save your loved ones.

For more information on funeral preplanning, check out Valley of Life’s latest eBook, The Funeral Preplanning Guide.

~Nicole Krueger, 2010

Tags: funeral preplanning, prepaid funerals, saving money on funerals

This entry was posted on Monday, June 21st, 2010 at 8:00 am and is filed under Preparation and Planning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.