Anytime is be good for pre-planning your own funeral, but it should not be when it is imminent. Why do we have to wait for the last day? Consider foresight as the best advantage. Picture planning a wedding or some other major celebration in just a few days. Don’t leave your life’s ultimate resting place to chance.
What Exactly is Funeral Pre-Planning?
Pre-planning your funeral is choosing in advance what will happen at one’s own burial from detailed plans down to outlines. It is important that one either stores soft copies or solutions hard copies so as their loved ones can see what they would have desired after dying.
The Differences Between Prepaying, Preneed, Preplanning
People often interchangeably use these terms to refer to having a pre-need funeral plan in place. Prepaying here means making formal arrangements for the payment of burial expenses ahead of time. Pre-need insurance, funeral trusts or payable upon death accounts are some examples of prepayment methods. Unlike this, preplanning does not assume that one has chosen a particular provider.
Types of Planning
At-Need vs. ‘Pre’need Funeral Planning
“At-Need” arrangements happen immediately after someone has died, often arranged by grieving family members or close friends. At this moment, emotions fill the air and time is constrained as people are sensitive. Alongside the emotional strain, families face immediate financial worries as they are tasked with promptly covering funeral expenses, thus imposing a significant burden on them.
Preneed – In contrast, “Preneed” plans, also known as “Preplanning,” entail individuals making preparations themselves while alive, for their eventual death and burial arrangements. These plans offer numerous benefits.
It might consist of simple preferences like burial or cremation and go all the way down into intricate details such as who will provide music during the ceremony and so forth. Essentially, what one does in this case after dying that makes entire process smoother for the beloveds.
The good thing is that making preplans may not require huge amounts of money despite financial constraints experienced by different people today. Nonetheless, it would be prudent to allocate funds accordingly, while considering numerous alternatives.
Funeral homes, cemeteries and websites offer preplanning tools that allow individuals take control over their future funerals conveniently.
Benefits of Pre-planning Your Funeral
If one of the following statements resonate with you, then preplanning your funeral has significant benefits:
- You want to take the burden off your family: By stating your preferences, thus avoiding misunderstandings or arguments during a difficult time.
- Paying for one’s own funeral gives peace of mind: Preplanning ensures that you put financial arrangements in place, so your loved ones won’t face a nightmare fulfilling your wishes.
- Family members may seek solace through a meaningful funeral: Taking charge in advance and create a fitting tribute that will honor and provide closure for yourself.
- Your last wishes must be respected: By pre-planning your funeral, you can specify details like what happens to your remains or even how these functions should be conducted.
- Shows loved ones how considerate you were: Having handled difficult personal decisions when loved ones are undergoing difficult times, gives great peace of mind.
- Protect against inflation: To protect against inflation and secure current prices one of the best things to do is to pre-arrange a funeral, so as to alleviate any financial burdens on family members. Above all other reasons, beginning this process now allows the elderly to freeze better charges contrasted to the anticipated future rise. Starting monthly payments at this time will help families avoid or reduce these monetary obligations.
Must we Pay Before Planning?
No, preplanning does not require upfront payment. Although it guarantees money for your funeral but you may choose not to do it. A number of financial alternatives exist: burial insurance, setting up trust funds or POD accounts can be some of them.
What does a Funeral Typically Cost in America?
The average cost varies according to whether you select burial or cremation. Other services also factor into the total cost according to your preferences.
According to most recent findings from National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA), concerning funeral and burial, it would be approximately $8,400. The price escalates up to $10,000 if you choose a vault which is common among cemeteries.
On another hand, the average price of cremation and funeral will amount $6,280.
Item Cost Description
Many actual costs may vary across locations as provided by NFDA.
Cost of metal casket – $2,600 This covers fiberboard, fiberglass or plastic caskets only while options like mahogany, copper or bronze could go for up to $10k in line with Federal Trade Commission.
Funeral service fee – $2,699 Covers labor and equipment costs incurred by funeral homes or cemetery facilities.
Vault – $1,745 Price of an enclosure designed for protecting coffins.
Embalming – $895 Preserving bodies usually necessary for open-caskets services or making interstate transfers possible.
Cremation casket – $1,295 This is a portable container that easily burns during cremation process.
Urn price – $295 Cost of having an urn used after cremation for storage of the ashes.
Funeral home staffs’ fees – $549 Optional charge towards facilitating consumers through attendants.
Facility usage charge – $475 This is a fee paid to the mortuary for allowing viewing in its chapel.
Cremation fee – $400 It covers cremating any given body, as most funeral homes lack cremators.
Hearse cost – $385 The funeral home charges the amount for the vehicle to transport the corpse between the funeral home and cemetery.
Transportation charges – $395 The price charged when moving remains from a morgue or other place to a funeral facility.
Cosmetic preparations cost – $310. This is a fee levied with regards to makeup, clothing and hairstyling process.
In Conclusion
Advance funeral planning is always encouraged at any time, but rushing at the last minute is discouraged. Preplanning offers a range of benefits in which people can make specific arrangements beforehand and that their wishes will be carried out once they have gone. It helps people to plan ahead and take the burden of planning from their loved ones as well as having something meaningful to remember them by.
The best part about pre-planning your funeral is that it doesn’t require payment up front. Payments can be custom-made to fit individual needs and financial resources. On the other hand, through preplanning, one can lock in current prices on various funeral costs. This would depend on whether it’s burial or cremation. All funeral homes, cemeteries, and online sources provide such services, offering tools for preplanning. This enables individuals to control what happens after they die, providing peace of mind for themselves and their families while alive.
