The Best Tips for Saving Money on Funeral Expenses
It is hard to let go of your loved ones. But final goodbyes are inevitable. When the time comes, you’d want to do it elegantly and in the best way possible. Funerals are emotional events and they can be expensive. But they don’t have to.
Here are some great ways to give a meaningful funeral while staying within your means.
Cremation Instead of Burial
Burial is often several times more expensive than cremation. If you opt for a burial, you must consider the cost of the cemetery plot, casket, burial vault, and headstone. All of this can come up to a significant amount. Meanwhile, cremation has no additional charges other than the actual charge for using the crematorium.
Immediate Burial or Cremation
A funeral soon after death is an immediate burial or cremation. It often takes no longer than a day and gives you and your family time to grieve. It’s one of the least expensive and most personal ways of sending off your loved ones. Most funeral homes offer direct cremation, which includes doing the paperwork, placing the body in the casket, and performing the burial.
Sustainable Burial Options
If you are looking for sustainable burial options such as soil transformation, you can learn more about the body composting process as well as other options easily online. The soil transformation concept is simply a process in which the nutrients of our bodies are returned to the natural world in a controlled fashion. In essence, the body is turned into a healthy soil that carries many benefits to the local ecosystem, such as providing nutrients to plants and filtering the water in the vicinity of the soil. There are other sustainable options available in addition to soil transformation, so do your research to decide what works best for you and which one would fit your budget the most comfortably.
Compare Prices
Comparing the prices of different funeral homes will help you pick the one that’s most convenient for you. Many funeral homes offer their services as a package, but many will customise them as well. You can call a handful of funeral homes and get their quotes to compare.
Donate the Body
Even after death, those with a mind to serve the world often decide to donate their body for science. Donated bodies are valuable for education and research in the field of medicine and healthcare sciences. Most universities cover all the costs of preserving or cremating the body afterwards.
The deceased must have conveyed their wish for body donation before death. For post-death donations, a senior next of kin must fill out a consent form.
Choose an Inexpensive Casket/Urn
A funeral casket or urn can eat the biggest chunk out of your funeral budget. If you are trying to save money, this is an area where you can cut corners. After all, a simple casket will do the job just as well as a fancy one.
Funeral homes will usually have some affordable options. Alternatively, you could look for them online.
You could also ditch wood caskets for those made from wicker and bamboo. They are low-cost without looking cheap. Plus, they are eco-friendly.
Skip Embalming
Embalming is a process done on the deceased body using chemicals to slow down decomposition. It is expensive and doesn’t have practical use unless you plan on keeping the body for service for several days after the death. Without embalming, you would have to bury the body within 72 hours or maintain it in a temperature-controlled environment to slow the natural changes after death.
Planning for a funeral is easier when you approach a funeral home. Many funeral homes Sydney and Perth residents rely on can help you set up a funeral plan to say the final goodbye to your dear ones and give them an honourable burial without the burdens of any extra cost.
