Funeral

My Brother-In-Law passed away unexpectedly last night. My Sister had not planned for this yet and thus was totally clueless. Since they had a plot, cremation was not one of the considerations we had.

My first thought was caskets at Costco. Unfortunately they do not sell caskets to be sent to her state (I’m sure it is some legal thing). Anyway I went online and found similar prices. I also found some does and don’ts and passed them on to my Sister.

It seems by law the funeral homes must quote casket prices as a separate line item. Also, the online casket company I found suggested that you not tell the funeral home that you are buying a casket elsewhere as they will shift their profit on it into another column. Just get their prices on all services and caskets and then tell them you will go home and decide with the family. Then you order your casket at the lower price online and have it delivered. You can pick and choose what other items you want from the funeral homes list. In fact, the casket company suggested that you visit multiple funeral homes further from home and shop prices, which gives you better info to ensure you don’t pay excessive costs.

So the casket company is in Dallas and they will ship the item via plane to a nearby airport with a cargo area. Then a courier brings the casket to the funeral home. I ordered the casket today and it will be there by close of business tomorrow. (By the way, I did check Amazon Prime first). The company called back and verified the order and the deceased persons weight and size to ensure the casket was the right size.

I checked and the cemetery requires a vault but I found the least expensive one and have their prices already.

So except for my Sister deciding upon funeral items like the viewing and flowers, etc, I think we are all set.

I was careful to not rush my Sister in any decision but let he know that I would make arrangements within her price range. I was careful not to spend hours on the internet (as I often do) trying to save every last cent, because that is not what this about. My Sister wanted someone to help her make decisions that she had no information about and to do this for a low to reasonable cost.

We will investigate headstones later as that is not a decision which needs to be made today.

I would have preferred that she had followed Clarks advice and joined one of the societies he has suggested to pre-plan and have guides and pricing suggestion in advance. These are usually volunteers who live in the area and are not associated with the funeral business.

In my Sisters time in need, I was happy that I could help take some of the burden off of her, rather than have my Sister go in and just blindly choose one of the standard plans at a much higher cost.

The thing to take away from this is that everyone should discuss these issues in advance, join a society that can offer unbiased help and keep insurance info and contacts handy.

By way of explanation, I am a listener to the consumer advisor Clark Howard (ClarkHoward.Com) and have learned to weigh price vrs performance, etc.

Most people would never think of Costco or Amazon or even an online casket company, because it is not an obvious thought, but can save you thousands of dollars.

The decisions in this event were based upon the desire to keep costs down yet retain dignity. It turns out the funeral home’s low cost casket was very inappropriate but the one we chose online saved thousands of dollars. I followed Clarks’ advise and that of the online casket company and others to ensure that we got what we wanted, not what might have been suggested by others who may put profit above other things. The worse time to try to make decisions like this is last minute or hen you are not thinking clearly.