Plan a funeral for $800 or less

You can’t take it with you, but you may not want to give thousands to a funeral home and florists. Talk to your loved ones about their wishes and tell them yours.
By Christopher Solomon, MSN Money

When a loved one dies, the last thing on most people’s minds is money. Only later do grief-stricken survivors find out that dying in America is very expensive — so expensive, the saying goes, that no one can afford to do it anymore.

The average funeral in the United States costs $6,500, according to the National Funeral Directors Association. The true sum can easily reach $10,000 once a burial plot, flowers and other costs are included, the AARP says.

You needn’t go into debt in order to honor the dead, however. In many parts of the country, a loved one can be laid to rest with dignity for less than $800, by choosing cremation and using creativity. Even those who favor a traditional funeral and burial can save hundreds or thousands of dollars by taking a few simple steps.

Whatever your preferences, consumer advocates recommend three steps above all others:

Plan ahead. Talk about death with your spouse and/or parents. Know what they want and commit those wishes to paper. Do they want to be cremated shortly after death with no ceremony? Or do they want a large funeral with a choir — but absolutely no fancy headstone? Lack of communication is costly.

“There’s more psychological baggage surrounding death than any other emotion or life experience — even sex. And that’s why we pay a high price,” says Karen Leonard, a researcher for “The American Way of Death Revisited,” the update of Jessica Mitford’s landmark 1963 muckraking exposé of the funeral industry.

Know your rights. The Federal Trade Commission’s “Funeral Rule” requires mortuaries to present a price list of services to consumers before showing them products such as caskets. A new FTC brochure that summarizes your rights is “Paying Final Respects: Your Rights When Buying Funeral Goods and Services.” Another detailed but very readable overview is the FTC brochure “Funerals: A Consumer Guide.”

Shop around. Many survivors also don’t shop around for deals because they consider bargain hunting an affront to the dead. Getting fleeced, however, is hardly a tribute. Even a few quick calls to compare prices once a relative dies can be worthwhile.

“Most people choose a funeral home for the wrong reasons: It’s close to their house, or it has served their family in the past,” says Joshua Slocum, executive director of the Funeral Consumers Alliance. “The range of prices offered by various funeral homes for comparable services is incredibly wide.”

The same funeral package that costs $6,000 at one mortuary can be $2,500 across town, says Slocum.

The $800 (or less) funeral
Though prices vary widely around the country, consumer advocates say a sub-$800 funeral is possible in most places. It requires cremation, however, which now occurs in about a third of all deaths. Here’s how:

Choose “direct cremation.” Direct cremation simply means that the deceased is promptly cremated, without a funeral service or viewing. Direct cremation usually includes transport of the body, cremation and a cardboard or plastic container for the ashes. Embalming — the temporary preservation of the body by injecting chemicals — is usually unnecessary if the body is promptly cremated. Avoiding this expense can save several hundred dollars.

Here’s how to be sure your parents are getting the help they need when you’re not nearby.

Be sure to ask whether the cost of direct cremation includes the crematory fee; that can cost an additional several hundred dollars.

Even cremation prices can vary — a lot. In a 2007 survey of prices at 170 funeral homes in western and central Washington state, the nonprofit People’s Memorial Association found that the price for simple cremation in the Seattle area ranged from $425 to more than $2,800.

Select the simplest casket. Buying a $5,000 mahogany casket if a loved one’s body is soon to be burned to ashes makes little sense. The Funeral Rule requires a funeral home to offer a cost-effective alternative such as an unfinished coffin or a heavy cardboard enclosure to house the body for its trip to the crematorium, where it will be burned along with the body. Ask for one. No state or local law requires a casket for cremation.

Ask the funeral home if a casket can be rented if the body is to be viewed before cremation.

If the total cost of direct cremation is more than $1,000 or so, even in the most expensive areas, “that’s not a fair price,” says Slocum. “This is not a lot of work for the funeral director.” In many places the price should be closer to $600, Leonard says.

Avoid a big-ticket urn and columbarium. Vessels to store the deceased’s ashes can easily cost hundreds — sometimes thousands — of dollars.

“Some funeral homes try to guilt families into buying more-expensive urns by stamping ‘temporary container’ on the outside of the cardboard or plastic box that the remains are returned in,” Slocum says.

Don’t be pressured into buying a lavish urn, says Lisa Carlson, a consumer advocate and the author of “Caring for the Dead: Your Final Act of Love.” Or, eschew an urn for a tasteful piece of pottery or other vessel, Carlson recommends. And scattering the ashes in the ocean or on a favorite mountain — or simply keeping them at home — can save thousands of dollars for a burial plot or a columbarium, a building that holds ashes.

Create your own memorial. Elaborate services held in a rented mortuary chapel can be expensive and feel awkward, say Leonard and others. She recommends holding a memorial service, without the body, in a place that meant much to the deceased — a church, a Fraternal Order of Eagles hall, the family’s beach house, a park or an art gallery. Instead of lavish flowers, decorate with mementos that evoke the person’s life — photo albums, Dad’s golf clubs, diplomas, perhaps some favorite foods.

Join the Funeral Consumers Alliance or a memorial society. In addition to providing information about funeral options in their area, the 110 memorial societies nationwide that are affiliated with the nonprofit Funeral Consumers Alliance frequently arrange discount funerals with local mortuaries.

For example, for a $25 lifetime membership in the Seattle-area People’s Memorial Association, the nation’s largest co-op with nearly 100,000 members, a person is able to purchase a $649 direct cremation — about 50% cheaper than some “list” prices, says former Executive Director Carolyn Hayek. Members also receive discounts on more elaborate options. Tired of high prices, the group even opened a member-owner funeral home recently.

Look at for-profit alternatives. Another option is a company that performs only direct cremation services, such as the Neptune Society. The company, which offers cremation only, has basic packages from $799 to $1,299, depending on location. But be careful, say consumer advocates. These groups are out to make a profit, and they’ve been known to use the hard sell, says Slocum, who cautions against them.

Donate to science. There may be no cost to a family to donate a body for medical research or for organ harvesting, according to the Funeral Consumers Alliance. There have been several scandals involving tissue donation in recent years, however. Slocum’s advice: Donate to a legitimate medical school’s body donation program, and question any tissue donation organization about whether it is a nonprofit or a for-profit group, and to whom it distributes tissue — that is, whether it’s allocated according to medical needs or for cosmetic reasons, for example.

Save on burials
If direct cremation or body donation aren’t right for you or a loved one, there are other ways to save money:

Direct burial. Like direct cremation, direct burial means that the deceased person is interred quickly, without a public viewing. There is no need for embalming, cosmetology services or a funeral.

Saying goodbye. Some people need to physically say goodbye to a loved one. That still doesn’t necessitate embalming. If relatives live nearby, “it costs nothing to have the family gather around the body at the time of death, as compared to a formal viewing at a funeral home,” says Hayek, formerly of People’s Memorial Association. If the person dies at home, “you do not have to immediately call the funeral home to pick up the body.”

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Caskets. One of the best places to save money on funeral services is the casket. No other single item is so expensive. A metal casket today now costs more than $2,000. Go to a funeral home and find an appropriate casket, then call others in town and comparison-shop. Prices can sometimes vary by hundreds of dollars. Skip the caskets with special seals that can raise a casket’s price by several hundred dollars; no seal will preserve the dead. Even greater savings can be found by shopping on the Web, where companies will sell the same caskets at less than half the price the funeral homes do and ship the casket to a funeral home overnight or in a few days.

Also consider bypassing high-end metal and wooden coffins entirely. You can purchase a simple, well-crafted pine casket at 5% of the cost of the most opulent polished bronze coffin. It will be more kind to the environment and ultimately will serve the dead just as well.

Clothing. Bury the deceased person in his or her favorite clothes, rather than in a new suit.

Grave liners and vaults. Most cemeteries require that a coffin in a grave must be surrounded by concrete walls so that the ground doesn’t settle over time. These “grave liners,” though simple, can cost a few hundred dollars. Call funeral homes to find the best price. Don’t be pressured into buying a “burial vault,” a more extensive liner that can cost much more but is unnecessary, say consumer advocates.

Monuments. Like caskets, prices for headstones and monuments vary hugely. It pays to shop around, including on the Web.

Benefits. Money is sometimes available to help bury the dead.

Veterans. Veterans of the U.S. armed forces and some civilians who have worked with the military or U.S. Public Health Service are entitled to free burial at a national cemetery, including a grave liner, marker and opening and closing of the grave. Mortuary fees aren’t included.

Social Security Administration. The federal government offers a lump-sum benefit payment of $255 upon death that can be used for funeral expenses. It is payable to a spouse or minor children of the deceased if they meet certain requirements.

Pensions, societies and pensions. Organizations built around some careers, such as the Railroad Retirement Board, as well as some social groups, unions and pensions, offer allowances to defray funeral costs.

To prepay or not to prepay?
An increasingly popular way to take care of funeral arrangements is to pay a funeral home in advance for a package of services. Many consumer advocates don’t recommend prepaid plans, saying consumers are not well-protected.

Only New York state has sufficiently stringent rules about prepaid plans, says the Funeral Consumers Alliance’s Slocum. He recommends that a person instead deposit future funeral expenses in a so-called Totten trust, an account that is payable to a designated survivor upon the death of the account holder. A Totten trust can be opened at any bank.

MSN Money, Sept. 18, 2007