Someone wrote to us this week that a person in his family is terminally ill, and that he was told “that the cost of the casket, funeral, viewing, and burial would possibly exceed 12,000 dollars.” He thinks that’s an “exorbitant amount of money,” and so do we. There is no reason to pay that much money for a kick-ass funeral that people will be talking about for years to come. You don’t need to be a cheapskate to manage this, either—you just need to be aware of your rights and know what traps to watch out for. Here’s our list of what to do the next time you have to plan a funeral.
Oh, and the kitten picture is just to cheer you up if you need it.
1. Learn about the Funeral Rule.
The Funeral Rule is an FTC regulation that requires several things of funeral professionals. Familiarize yourself with these points, and if a funeral home conveniently “overlooks” them, or outright refuses to follow them, run away. (But also report them to the FTC once you’ve got the presence of mind to deal with that stuff again.)
- Funeral directors must give you itemized prices in person as well as over the phone. You have to ask for the over-the-phone quotes; in person it’s a given, and anyone who skips this is worthy of suspicion.
- They must give you itemized prices for any other services they offer, if you ask. This goes for caskets, burial containers, whatever.
- You have the right to buy individual goods and services; no funeral director or home can force you to buy a package.
- If a state or local law requires that you buy a particular item, the funeral director must state that next to the item on the price list, and reference the specific law.
- You can bring your own casket; a funeral home cannot refuse you or charge you a “handling fee.”
- If you choose cremation, the funeral provider must offer an alternative container to a casket; you don’t have to buy a nice coffin just to burn it up.
- Speaking of which, the funeral director must show you a list of caskets for sale, including descriptions and prices, before showing you the actual caskets. There’s a reason for this—see #4 below.
- There is no technology, embalming chemical, coffin, liner, or vault that will preserve a body indefinitely. Funeral directors can’t promise or insinuate otherwise.
2. Consider a direct burial with a memorial service.
A “traditional” burial is really marketing speak for a “full-service” burial—funeral providers have a vested interest in suggesting that full-service equals “more appropriate,” because then they can jam a trocar right into your bank account and suck out your savings.
A direct burial, on the other hand, can still include a graveside service, a memorial, or any other rituals you feel are important to the survivors. Remember, you decide what’s considered traditional for your family, not a stranger.
3. You may not have to worry about embalming.
If you’re burying or cremating the body shortly after death, you can probably skip embalming. Here’s a chart showing the law on embalming for each state, or just do a Google search for “embalming law [your state]“. The funeral provider cannot perform an embalming without your permission, and as with other services, must full disclose whether or not it’s required and how much it will cost.
4. Learn how to shop for a casket. (And a vault.)
A. You will be subconsciously led to purchase a specific one. The FTC says, “Industry studies show that the average casket shopper buys one of the first three models shown, generally the middle-priced of the three.” Remember this before making a decision, and assume that you’re being directed to the middle-priced casket intentionally.
If you aren’t shown the cheaper caskets on the list the funeral director was supposed to have already provided, then ask to see them. If the cheaper casket that you want is in an ugly color, ask if you can order a more pleasing color—the color choice is on purpose to deter you.
B. You will be upsold on gaskets, seals, thickness, and various other protective measures that do nothing. The FTC says, “The Funeral Rule forbids claims that these features help preserve the remains indefinitely because they don’t. They just add to the cost of the casket.”
C. Buy your casket separately. The Funeral Consumers Alliance says “few consumers realize that caskets may be marked up 300-500% or more.” They say caskets can retail for $600 or so, but a more realistic baseline these days is about $1000. If you can locate a local builder or know some basic carpentry, you can build your own and probably bring the price down some more.
Here are some places to begin your search, although we personally vouch for none of ‘em:
D. You may be able to rent a casket for viewing if you plan on cremating the body. Be sure to ask. Also, if you’re cremating without a viewing, you can bypass the casket option entirely and save a huge amount of money.
E. Don’t waste money on an expensive vault. A vault or grave liner is basically a concrete shell placed into the grave to keep the dirt from caving in around the casket. Some cemeteries may require it to keep graves from sinking, but no state or federal laws do. In other words, unless the cemetery requires it, you don’t have to buy one. Our reader Erik notes, “Buy a cheap vault, if you need one at all. I’ve seen people spend $4,000 on something that will never be seen by anyone.”
5. Find out if a military burial is an option.
Check out this comment from textilesdiva on a previous post:
If you even THINK the deceased might be entitled to burial in a military cemetery, look into it. For my grandmother’s burial, the plot, facilties for the graveside ceremony, stone, “perpetual care” and all that jazz was $300 at a local military cemetery. As I understand it, my grandfather’s second wife is also eligible for burial with him and his first wife. He was in service during a war, but never deployed to a combat zone.
I doubt the coffin or funeral home services were included in this, but my parent’s surprise at the cemetery costs leads me to think $300 is extraordinarily cheap. This was in 2004, btw.
Here’s more information on eligibility—or just call the Veteran’s Benefits Counselor at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs: 1-800-827-1000.
6. Turn to religion.
Our reader Eyebrows McGee, who is an estate lawyer or something like that, points out that churches and synagogues frequently can provide help on figuring out more affordable solutions:
If there is an Orthodox Jewish community in your area, find out who they use. Generally Orthodox Jews use very, very plain coffins which cost very little, for religious reasons.
Your local church/synagogue/mosque/temple/whatever can probably also help you with low-cost planning. They usually have relationships with funeral parlors who want to keep their business more than they want to rip you off. And having a religious funeral service frequently cuts out a big chunk of the cost, since (some) funeral homes make a lot off of families with no religious “home” who have the service at the funeral parlor.
Eyebrows McGee actually has a lot of good advice on funerals and planning for them. Read these two comments for more useful tips:
Handouts!
We want you to save money and stick it to the man, “the man” in this case being a funeral director, so we’ve taken the checklist the FTC provides in html table format and turned it into a handy PDF suitable for printing. Download it here.
After we posted this, our reader Erik sent us a “funeral plan” form (PDF). He’s a pastor with lots of experience officiating funerals, and he says this is one of the easiest ways to collect all the important data you need for this sort of thing. But remember to distribute it:
Put it somewhere it can be found! Don’t put in a safe deposit box or with a will. Those won’t be looked at until after a burial. Instead, give it to your children, spouse, clergy or a funeral director you trust. Even better, give it to all of them, so that someone can find it when it’s needed.
RELATED
FAQs on Funeral Arrangements [Funeral Consumers Alliance]
FTC Funeral Microsite [FTC]
(Photo: Kpjas)
Update: by reader demand, we have increased the kittenosity of this post:
(Photos: Kpjas, Clevergrrl, d u y g u, mathia-erhart)
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My mother’s funeral was just yesterday and we did the full thing for 7K, which included the service, the casket, the digging up and re-covering of the gravesite and transportation to the cemetery. Oh, and I think that also included them having the guys to finish her half of the headstone with her date of death.
They took bones, muscles and connective tissue from the lower half of her body to use in various medical procedures for others. She would have wanted that, to help others like that. Being 74 there were a lot of things she couldn’t donate.
My mom had a thing about her casket and if she could have been buried in a cardboard box she would have. She and my father definitely believed in ‘ashes to ashes and dust to dust” but didn’t want to be cremated, either. What she didn’t want to do was sit there and rot and get slimy. Yeah, not an appealing thought.
Actually, in the US home funerals were the norm as well, and the women in the family “dressed the body”. I’ve got an older cousin–he’s in his fifties–who remembers going to funerals in people’s homes. That changed when the funeral industry started lobbying state and federal goverments, so they could get the business.
@bunneymare That was an incredible, giving act. You have saved lives with your sacrifice, whether you know it or not.
In my will I have specified the following:
#1 I will be buried in the cheapest casket possible. Pine box is fine. No silk. Dress me in blue jeans and a T shirt. I just want a pillow and a blanket.
#2 Nobody (from the preacher on down) will be permitted to wear anything fancy. Absolutely no ties. No suits. You may pay your respects to me and be comfortable at the same time.
#3 I do want a funeral lunch at the church fellowship hall served by the wonderful church ladies who always do a fantastic job at these. And I want one of their wonderful ham sandwiches put in the casket with me. Just in case it’s a long trip.
I am so, so glad to see this on Consumerist. I am a huge fan of the FCA and I try to spread the gospel as much as possible whenever the subject comes up. You think Best Buy is bad? The amount of overselling, overpricing and outright fraud would make your head spin.
People don’t want to think about their funerals, so it often gets left up to their family, who are ill prepared to deal with things such as prices because they are grieving. If you’ve been a smart consumer all your life, you don’t want to let some funeral director screw you, and your family, in the end. Shop around, pre-plan, but don’t pre-pay!
Can people choose not to claim the body and escape all costs?
@Corporate_guy: Unfortunately the deceased will usually leave behind an estate that can be charged the funeral industry tax. There is no reason why public trash incinerators cannot be utilized, but of course the government can never do things efficiently. Probably the only solution is to die with large debts. ?
I you just want cremation without a service and without a funeral home getting involved, contact the Neptune Society. Their prices vary by area, their website said in my area a basic cremation, including everything (no hidden extras) is $1400.
One important thing to note about gaskets, seals, etc.:
Their purpose is to an air-tight seal. However, in the normal process of decomposing the body will generate gasses, and that sealing will sometimes cause caskets to explode (or at least somewhat violently rupture) when underground.
The point of mentioning this is you are being taken advantage of based on the idea that your deceased love one is going to be better protected with this add-on, when in fact it may cause the body to end up in a worse, gooey mess.
Plain pine box, cremation, or science donation for me, thanks.
@AndyMan1:
Why do you even want to waste money on a box? Just drop them in the ground directly. Plant a tree on top and become fertilizer.
Three words. Yard-a-pult.
Oh My God. Build your own casket? Really?
The latest issue of Smithsonian magazine has a great article in it about a home funeral. The author built the casket himself, and they even washed and dressed the body (his terminal father-in-law). No embalming, then cremation. They found it very comforting.
An interesting and helpful story. Go check it out (at your local library or online of course.)
Overstock.com sells caskets and urns…
Morbid as it may seem, all these people making comments about their plans have it pretty solid. Planning ahead is the way to go. My grandmother passed about a month ago, and she had planned all this out, probably 10 years ago. So, while we had to go through her long final week in the hospital, everything else was done, and the extent of the family prep for the funeral consisted of picking out pictures to be displayed during the calling hours/funeral, writing the obituary, and setting up the wake afterward. Everything else, casket, services, burial plot, even flowers and music, had been prearranged. It seems awful to say almost, but once it actually happened, everything was so smooth.
Cremation.
you don’t have to worry about no one visiting your grave after a few years that way. if you were memorable enough, then people will remember you even if you don’t have a grave to visit.
Also, cremation is an eco-friendly way to go. What is the point of having your body rot in the ground?
I’m gonna follow The Simpsons’ advice here, just throw the body over the fence and let Arby’s deal with it.
Funerals are a waste of money. The dead don’t care, they’re dead.
I’d have the cheapest possible thing done. Spend as little money as possible. Why waste the energy. If you can save a few thousand dollars on the disposal of your body – then do it; move on and send your family on a nice vacation to Hawaii or get new carpet for the house.
And yes, I have no sense of nostalgia.
Yes, it is a shame how the funeral industry preys on people when they’re at their most vulnerable. My husband passed away 4 years ago, and I was 26. What the hell did I know about any of this? I was lucky in that one of my brothers-in-law and my dad took charge and made the plans. All told, the funeral was $17,000. (We didn’t pay for it, though. He was killed in a work accident and the company picked up the bill.)
Since it wasn’t on our dime, I was happy (as happy as you can be, anyway), to see him get a beautiful, shiny casket. It reminded me of his black 350Z – he loved that car. As for his clothes, it was a closed-casket, and I picked the plainest suit he had, and had him dressed in that. I wish organs could’ve been donated, as he was only 30, and in great shape, but his body was in no condition to donate.
With regards to the actual funeral, I think it’s important to remember that yes, the point of it is to remember you, the deceased, and to celebrate your life – but it’s also to help the grieving. My husband was very popular in our town, and it filled my heart to see how many people came to pay their respects.
Ditto MataHari and bunnymare:
My grandma passed away this week. She had been ill for a long time, so we are relived she is in peace. A few years ago she requested that her body be donated to medical science, training and research. This sounds kinda crazy. However, her wishes made things so easy for us. When she passed away, we called a pre arranged phone number. The service came and took her away very quickly. They are working the death certificates and cremating her. We should receive her ashes in 6-8 weeks. We will probably have a small memorial for Grandma at a later date.
Here is the kicker: this avenue is 100% free of charge. This is considered a donation.
If you can get past the weirdness of donating your body, then you may want to consider this.
My grandmother did not go directly through a university. She went through some sort of distribution company that puts the donation in the hands of a willing recipient. It was called ScienceCare.
Already told my significant other that I don’t give a crap about funerals. Get a nice oldschool burlap sack, and chuck me in that damn hole and forget about it. If necessary find a token $50 plywood box to wrap around the body. And if a priest comes within a 100 feet of my dead corpse, she has full permission to kick their money-grubbing ass.
When you’re dead, you’re a hunk of rotting meat. Like with weddings in America, the naive and dumb end up being milked by the vultures out to fleece those who think paying for ‘rituals’ somehow sprinkles magic over it.
Consumerist: “If you’re lazy to find out the truth for yourself, just turn to religion.”
I do appreciate that this post says you can have a kick-ass funeral on the cheap. Absolutely. You do NOT have to spend $12,000 on a funeral.
I’m in the burial vault industry. Yes, we make expensive vaults, because there are those people who want an expensive vault. We also make affordable products that will exceed cemetery requirements. So, since the cemetery you go to may very well require an outer burial container, here are a few tips:
Get what you feel is right. If you want the bare minimum, get it. Get what makes you happy, because believe it or not, most of us in the funeral industry feel that we are providing a service to those in need. We try very hard to treat everyone as if they were our own family. What is more important, honestly, than the particular burial vault is the graveside service. The quality of a graveside service can vary wildly, from terrible (I’ve seen people put some boards down and some rusted folding chairs and call it a day) to amazing (we provide ice water or blankets depending on the weather, everything is clean, polished, and great care is taken to ensure your comfort.)
Beware of anyone who tells you a concrete shell is a vault. It’s not. A vault is lined and sealed for strength and water resistance. Many corporate establishments, especially corporate cemeteries, will try to sell you a concrete liner, or rough box, because that is where they get their greatest markup. It’s not uncommon for cemeteries in my state to make upwards of $800 on a concrete shell. It’s almost pure profit for them. So shop around. In many cases, you will spend more for an outer burial container at a cemetery than you will at a funeral home, although many times cemeteries will cut you a deal to undercut the funeral home. Generally, funeral homes are not allowed to do price matching, but the cemeteries can and will.
Lastly, don’t ever, EVER, shop at a corporate place. Don’t go with Dignity, Stewart (they all have a rose illustration in the establishment’s logo), Keystone, Cornerstone, or any others. You will get ripped off. These bastards have taken what has always been a long-term, generational business, and perverted it in the name of shareholder interests. Stay away from them.