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Old 06-11-2017, 08:22 AM   #41
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My plan is to have a prepaid funeral arrangement for myself. I've always been an independent type of person and guess even when kicking the bucket, that's no exception. Plus, by planning ahead, I have more of a say as to what type of arrangements I want.
I will do the same one day. It's just me so I would rather take care of it rather than leaving it up to my nephews. It will make it easier on them and I will get something better than a pine box. Not that it matters at that point. Ha.
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Old 06-11-2017, 11:02 AM   #42
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I'm going the pre-planned route as well. It's not to try to save money on the funeral expenses, although I'm planning modestly. It's to ease the burden on surviving children, who can avoid having to make a lot of unpleasant decisions because I will have already made choices.
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Old 06-12-2017, 05:14 AM   #43
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Has anyone done pre-planning with a funeral home for burial in a national veteran's cemetery? I know the cemetery doesn't allow pre-planned selection of plots, but just wondering how a funeral home would handle it.
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Old 06-12-2017, 07:00 AM   #44
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MIL died about 15 years after FIL. When MIL passed away we went to the funeral home with FIL's contract in hand to use as a guide. We were surprised that the fees had gone down significantly over the 15 years. Made me question whether prepaid made sense.
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Old 06-12-2017, 12:46 PM   #45
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Have not done ours yet.

But mine will be very straightforward. Throw what is left of me in a cardboard box and chuck it in an incinerator. No fancy coffin, no limos, flowers, receptions. Don't believe in it. No funeral home urn either. Scatter the ashes.
End of.
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Old 06-12-2017, 01:10 PM   #46
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Has anyone done pre-planning with a funeral home for burial in a national veteran's cemetery? I know the cemetery doesn't allow pre-planned selection of plots, but just wondering how a funeral home would handle it.
It's a smart idea to set this up in advance, because it is a bit involved. The best thing would be to look for a local funeral home that has experience with burials at veteran cemeteries and get all the paperwork out of the way. Discharge papers or other proof of veteran status is needed. You can choose a cemetery now but it may be closed when your time comes, so the funeral home should also have experience transporting the remains out of state.

DF wanted to be buried at a veterans cemetery but only shared that with DM, and when he passed away unexpectedly, no one knew, so he was buried in a local church cemetery. DM asked me to look into relocating his remains, which may not happen due to excessive paperwork and cost.
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Old 06-12-2017, 01:45 PM   #47
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Preplanned is good, I think. So many problems with unplanned. Grief. Panic. Coroner and cops milling around, demanding you make plan "now" for burial or cremation. No one is allowed to recommend any good inexpensive funeral homes, etc. Pressure. Pressure. You're looking through yellow pages, no one answers the phone at the funeral homes, but you can leave a message. Then you find out cremation will cost $3,500. What? That's inexpensive? And the funeral home contract states they will charge you $2,000 to transfer the body to another funeral home. It's all a huge ripoff for the unplanned situations. You find out later you could have had a preplanned cremation for $1,900 at a different funeral home. But $1,900 is way too much also. So weird. Profits must be enormous. Where are these $500 cremations one hears about?
So, my wife's dead broke uncle who is living with my mother in law is going to die one day., He has 5 children from 2 different wives. They dont speak with him now, imagine if i called them and said to kick in 1500 each to bury him hahahah. I priced out cremations. It was $1740 the cheapest. Guess my mother in law needs to save that up. He has said in the past he wanted to go with his parents. I told him you better start savin up , cause just to open the plot and the casket are a few grand.
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Old 06-12-2017, 01:48 PM   #48
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My plan is to have a prepaid funeral arrangement for myself. I've always been an independent type of person and guess even when kicking the bucket, that's no exception. Plus, by planning ahead, I have more of a say as to what type of arrangements I want.
You better do it now, tomorrow is promised to no one.
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Old 06-12-2017, 04:58 PM   #49
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I was the guardian for my good friend that was in a home and her DH was in a veterans cemetery. WE were allowed to prepay the funeral and she was on Medicaid. It was not complicated at all. When she died we called the home and they handled everything. They even would have taken her ashes to the cemetery but we wanted too.
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Old 06-12-2017, 06:14 PM   #50
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I already posted my true thoughts on the matter, but on the lighter side-----I kid my wife that i want a horse drawn carriage carrying my coffin, slowly going down 5th avenue during rush hour. I want professional mourners, and if available a flyover with a missing man formation. Id like several bagpipers to play some tear jerking songs. And if finances allow the Celtic women singing Ave Maria. Her response was , "Sure, anything you want honey".
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Old 06-12-2017, 07:33 PM   #51
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My DW and I bought our side-by-side plots last week. That was a pretty expensive little piece of land that I calculated was a little north of $3 million per acre. I think there might be some profit in there somewhere.
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Old 06-12-2017, 10:05 PM   #52
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My DW and I bought our side-by-side plots last week. That was a pretty expensive little piece of land that I calculated was a little north of $3 million per acre. I think there might be some profit in there somewhere.
Where my father and sister are buried , you can resell vacant unused plots for a LARGE profit. They are running out of room and some people want a plot in the same cemetery as their departed loved ones.
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Old 06-12-2017, 10:50 PM   #53
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Have not done ours yet.



But mine will be very straightforward. Throw what is left of me in a cardboard box and chuck it in an incinerator. No fancy coffin, no limos, flowers, receptions. Don't believe in it. No funeral home urn either. Scatter the ashes.

End of.


+1. No urn for me either. Ziploc bag to hold ashes before scattering is good for me. And a celebration for loved ones, as positive as possible.
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Old 06-12-2017, 11:00 PM   #54
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We prepaid plots for my mom and dad. It was inexpensive years ago, $2400 for a plot near the ocean where all the rich people were buried. But the casket was expensive, it was like $12,000 for my mom. I don't remember funeral cost but I think we divided the total cost to all our siblings so it was bearable. But this is money back in 20 years plus time frame. The plot was purchased at least 30 years plus time frame. Probably costs at least $10k now.
For my husband his life insurance from his work place will cover funeral cost. Plus his parents both were cremated so that would be the way to go for him. The funeral home scattered their ashes to the green grass of England. For me, I'm easy. Once I'm dead, I'm dead. Cremation or do whatever my kids want is good with me. But I'm not into prepay anything. I can't bear to think about it.
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Old 06-13-2017, 06:04 AM   #55
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Now living in the Islands, our thinking on the whole subject of funerals and "disposal" has changed. All 4 parents are interred in "drawers" at an above-ground mausoleum on the mainland. An interesting story is that this particular structure was hit by a tornado after our parents internment! Damage was significant and many of the decorative seals (equivalent to grave stones but placed over the opening to the "drawer") were ripped off, broken in some cases and scattered. None of parents' seals were damaged, but that was just luck.

In the Islands, cremation is more and more common since cemetery space is at a premium. A fairly common practice following cremation is to place the urn (or plastic box!) in a purpose-built "faith appropriate" cubby-hole in a beautiful building. One of these buildings recently went bankrupt! Doh! It's sort of like the "cosmos" or something telling us to figure out a "better way."

We believe we have hit on the perfect solution (which will also save money.) There is a truly beautiful "all purpose" (burial, mausoleum, or urn storage) "all faith" (but segregated!) cemetery. It even has a pet cemetery! We figure spreading our ashes in the Pacific is SO cliche', SO '90's! We want our ashes spread over the pet cemetery! YMMV
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Old 06-13-2017, 10:07 AM   #56
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+1. No urn for me either. Ziploc bag to hold ashes before scattering is good for me. And a celebration for loved ones, as positive as possible.
My Bro was in an urn after the cardboard casket burned really well. We had it on a table in our hosted celebration at The Jolly Miller tavern. I announced that this was the first and last free drink they would get from Bro.

His will stated that he wanted the urn interred with our parents. That took a few months and many bucks to arrange.
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Old 06-14-2017, 10:24 AM   #57
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My mother bought her Urn at the same time she bought my father's when he died in 2006. I now have it in the back of a closet (I think). Very nice Urn, metal and quite heavy. Will last a long time since it is going in a Mauseleum.
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Old 06-14-2017, 05:25 PM   #58
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This is a topic on my mind at the moment. My sister's partner died a couple of weeks ago and the family unable to afford a burial, had the body cremated for around $2,500 with the ashes returned to them for interment or disposal. There will be a memorial for him tomorrow at his favourite pub, in lieu of a service and wake. As he was a regular, the licencee is providing free catering and mourners will buy their own drinks. At the end of the day, it was probably their only option but the family and friends will still feel as though they provided him with a good "send off".

My FIL assured his sons that he'd pre-paid his own funeral some 30 years ago, after their mother's death but when he died in 2012, we could not find a contract or any evidence of a pre-paid funeral and the town's only funeral provider had no record of it either. So in our case a pre-paid funeral provided no benefit to the family at all. Perhaps he meant he'd paid for the burial plot, we'll never know.

Both these deaths were sudden and unexpected and very stressful for those left behind.
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Old 06-14-2017, 05:44 PM   #59
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I have been to a few funerals where the "hat" was passed. I remember one family didnt claim the body for a while as they were scrounging up funds.
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Old 06-14-2017, 06:00 PM   #60
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My family doesn't have the memorial gene. Dad told me to scatter his ashes over his favorite fishing grounds in Jamaica Bay. Mom said to put hers in the same place. Neither wanted any kind of ceremony.

When my father died in 1996, I contacted the only local funeral home that handled cremations. Simplest possible arrangement. Pick up from hospital, deliver to crematorium, then hand me the ziplock bag of ashes. $1,770.

When my mother died in 2012, I did the same thing, but with a newer funeral home that did its own cremations. $2,370.

The increase was less than the rate of inflation, so I got a better deal the second time. Both included about 15 official death certificates, just in case.
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