Funerals and funeral expenses

[red750]

It has been no secret that funerals can be very expensive, and undertakers can urge you to spend outlandish amounts. My sister told me that my uncle's funeral cost $11,000, and it was a very modest affair. My cousin is a transport civil celebrant for weddings and funerals, and she knows of some cases where the coffin alone cost almost $10,000. Add all the other costs - funeral parlor, transport, celebrant, gravesite, catering, etc.., it can run away with a fortune.

 

During the pandemic lockdowns, when people could not attend funerals, a new approach appears to have arisen. I saw on the internet, advertisements for a company called Bare Cremations, where they collect the body from where th person passed, carry out an unattended cremation, and return the ashes to the family, along with formal death certificate and other paperwork. The price for this basic service is less than $2000. It is then up to the family to arrange whatever memorial celebrations they desire, and decide how to deal with the ashes.

 

Having to make a decision on the spot when the ambulance attended my wife and declared her deceased, I called Bare Cremations who came and collected the corpse. My daughter was concerned that the clothing my wife was wearing was not dignified - an old tee-shirt, tracksuit pants and compression socks - and even though she knew no-one would view the body, she wanted to farewell her mother in a more dignified outfit. She contacted the company, who said they do not treat the body in any way, not even cleaning any secretions following death, and simply place it in the box and cremate it. My daughter was horrified.

 

She got on the internet and found another company who conduct unattended cremations. They give the body a hygenic wash, dress it in whatever clothes the family provides, or wrap it in a white shroud, then cremate it. This made her much happier. We have arranged to have Irene transferred to the second company. The bonus is that this company was cheaper than the first, and could supply a small rosewood or walnut casket for the ashes at a very reasonable cost, bringing the total to just a small fraction more than the first company. This small casket will take the place of an expensive coffin at the memorial service I am arranging. Family members have offered to provide refreshments, so the memorial will be dignified but not cost a fortune. The second company is called Fixed Price Cremations They will collect the body, treat it with dignity and return the ashes in the small casket to us. 

[old man emu]

It is so very hard to know in what way one should deal with our Loved One at that time. My overriding desire was that my wife as not cremated as I feel that by cremation the person is gone too soon. Financially, I was fortunate in that my wife lies in a country cemetery where the price of a plot is so much less than at a city cemetery. Also, nowadays graves are dug deep so that two people can be buried in the one plot. So I know where I'll go.

 

Funeral Directors don't do it for Love. It is their livelihood, and they make their money firstly by doing the administrative work needed for a death certificate and  by preparing the body for the funeral, whichever is to follow, and running the funeral. Secondly, they push the "extras" like expensive coffins, flowers, newspaper notices because that's where the profit is. To me, the most important thing on my mind when burying my wife was to have a place to go to in order to keep up my memory of her. I knew that whatever sort of coffin she was place in, it would rot away. Also it would only be seen for an hour or two before it was buried. Since it was only her immediate family who attended, what was the need for an expensive coffin?

 

I'm sure that the Funeral Director was broken hearted with the simplicity and lack of extras, but I'm sure that for my kids and me, my wife was buried with love and respect. The Director's fee was about eight thousand, and that included her transport from Sydney to Gilgandra. Luckily, my kids had the ready money to settle the account, and now I have to consider the way I'll repay them. 

[red750]

I can understand where you are coming from O.M.E. but it was my wife's wishes, expressed to the kids only a couple of days before she passed, that she wanted to be cremated. Her father passed away before we met, about 55 years ago. When her mother died 11 years ago, she was buried in the same grave, even though she had married again in later life. I will have my memories in my heart, I have a larger framed version of the photo below on the bedroom wall, and I will keep the ashes casket on the dressing table, so she will be with me always. What the kids do with it when I'm gone is up to them.

 

There was a transport and handling charge by the first company of $350. The fixed price cremation, which includes all legal paper work and death certificate, is $1695.00, and the ashes caskets as shown below (rosewood on the left, and walnut) are $242.00 extra. They are 16cm high.

 

 

[Bruce Tuncks]

Here's my idea...  get buried secretly on the farm and provide lots of forward-dated postcards saying how I have met a rich lady in Melbourne and they are not to pursue me but to keep cashing my super cheques.

This will not only save the cost of a funeral, but I will keep getting paid after I have gone.

I got the idea from the "bodies in a barrel" murders in SA, where the perps kept cashing the pension cheques of the murdered people.

[old man emu]

5 hours ago, red750 said:

it was my wife's wishes,

Cremation or burial, it's a personal choice, You were lucky that your wife told you hers and that you could fulfil the wish. You are lucky to be able to make a "shrine" to her memory. I will do something similar when I finish the renovation and unpack my stuff. At the moment I have a 6 x 4 photo of her beside me at the computer, and another pinned to her grave marker so people passing by will know what she looked like.

[spacesailor]

I,M NOT GOING. 

just a bit of bravity,  not looking forward to my ending !. LoL

spacesailor