Cremation is much cheaper. You only rent the casket (if you want viewing) and there's no plot to buy. Besides, you get a nice urn to place on the mantle.
I have strict rules for when my time comes. I want the cheapest funeral with cremation that money can buy. Loved ones jet so suckered into spending a small fortune with just the friggen casket. I have pondered though if I want the cardboard casket or splurge for a pine box.
Depends on the size of the family and number of close friends, their religious beliefs, and presence/absence of specific instructions in the Will. Sometimes it's impossible to avoid a big show.
If the coroner does not require an autopsy, one is not desired by the next of kin, organ donation is not accomplished, and the body was not traumatically mutilated, anatomic donation to a medical school is usually at zero cost to the next of kin.
In many states, it is legal for the mortuary to cremate the remains without a casket. Ashes can be scattered at sea or returned to the next of kin in a simple cardboard box. Funeral parlor services are not obligatory. Placement of the ashes in a columbarium or grave is not obligatory. Not entirely free, but probably the most cost effective.
I'm going for the cardboard. My first idea was to just strap me onto a wood pallet and set it adrift, but the law enforcement people frown upon that. Cheap is good, no reason to spend money to get rid of a body no longer being used.
I'm pretty sure you can be autopsied if the law finds reason to require it, donate those organs that are good to go, and still donate the rest of your body to a medical school. If parts are missing, they can look at the other table.
I've been carrying an organ donor card all but 6 months for the last
42 years.
And I'm typed and registered as a bone-marrow donor too, for the last
20 years (which doesn't require being dead, in fact the opposite), but I think I got their annual newspaper that says I'm too old to give bone marrow. (How can that be if it's still working for me?)
The mortuary I went to once, had a bunch of expensive caskets on display and hid the cheap ones. 15 years ago, 100 dollars for a pine box. I'm not sure about cardboard in this state. Didn't Sears say it was going to start selling coffins cheaply, or Walmart?
Powers of Attorney expire when you do. (Also checking accounts and uncashed checks, etc. The checks become a claim against the estate, paid it is hoped at 100%. )
I suspect everything in your family is done right, and the power of attronery and medical power of attorney is for when she is still alive but not entirely with it.
Then go down and buy a pre-pay plan. As for the casket. One is not needed if there is to be no viewing, nor is embalming required. I thinkg the specification is "Immediate cremation".
Even cremation has gone way up. I started the process a few years ago, then procrastinated at that time they quoted $700 range. This year I finally did it and it was already $1700 and change. It won't get any cheaper.
?? If you are talking about adding 'extras' when you buy the pre-pay then yes, of course but _you_ have control of them not a survivor who can have a guilt trip laid on them for going "cheap".
So don't bother to check it out all all, eh?
Name your own or have the court name one. Like it or not there _will_ be an executor.
So you will just dump the decisions and costs on your survivors? Nice guy!
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.