Funerals Still Expensive-Your Funeral Guy

Image via Wikipedia

In spite of  the many options to lower the cost of a funeral,  most folks do find funerals expensive and have trouble lowering the cost of  a funeral or finding a way to lower the cost of a funeral. The Funeral Consumers Alliance can help with lowering  the cost of a funeral alon with the book Rest in Peace Insiders tips to the low cost less Sttress Funeral.

When you think of a funeral, many people think about the casket, the church service and grave burial. But there are many other choices, especially if you’re looking to reduce costs.

It is an inevitable part of life. “It’s something we simply don’t like to talk about,” said Overton Ganong of the Funeral Consumers Alliance of South Carolina.

Dealing with death is hard. Not planning for it makes it worse. “It was such a whirlwind event, it was really kind of just numbing,” said Tammy Chapman.

Cancer took Chapman’s father Julian, and she was responsible for the funeral. He owned a burial plot, but didn’t have life insurance. That left Tammy with few options. “When he passed unexpectedly like that, we had literally just enough money to bury him,” said Chapman.

Tammy’s situation is all too familiar to the Funeral Consumers Alliance. “We see a lot of times families getting into real disagreements at the time of the death when there has been no conversation around these issues,” said Ganong.

Ganong says families should talk about what they want. Tight budgets make that conversation crucial. “Funerals are not inexpensive,” said Greg Dunbar, who manages a funeral home in Columbia.

via www.wect.com

funeral industry| funeral News Funeral blog by Your Funeral Guy

Related articles

• How Much Does it Cost to Die? (creditloan.com)

Costco, Walmart can save you money on a Casket-YourFuneralGuy

Image via Wikipedia

One of the Ways to save money on a funeral is to reduce the Casket expense. Obtain your Casket from a Third party or on the internet. Depending on the funeral home the markup on the casket  markup is  between 100 and 500 %. I remember the first time i heard that as a Funeral apprentice, at an elite funeral home in the Washington DC Area. It made me uncomfortable then and it  is disconcerting  to think i was once taking advantage of the funeral consumer in this manner.

Third party caskets can save you lots of money on a funeral. Many times you can obtain the same or similar casket you find at the funeral home.

There are also lower cost Funeral Homes that sell caskets just a little over cost.They do not price gouge on Caskets  These Folks should not be overlooked because often they go out of their way to help you save on Funeral Cost. Even in today’s economy the low cost funeral home may be hard to find.  But the good news is that “today” more and more Funeral directors are willing to negotiate down the price of a Funeral.

Costco and Walmart are some of the main players in today’s market giving the funeral industry a hard time on casket and funeral cost.

Beyond sudden and unexpected outbreaks of longevity, the funeral industry has plenty of challenges. Cremations have been growing in popularity, and they’re less expensive than traditional burials. Companies such as Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) and Costco (Nasdaq: COST) have also found a new and potentially powerful revenue stream by selling inexpensive caskets online. (Lest anyone try to tell you otherwise, funeral homes are required to accept and work with third-party caskets.)

via www.themoneytimes.com

Funeral industry, Funeral News, Funeral Blog by Your Funeral Guy

Your Funeral Guy is not affiliated with Costco or Wal mart

Walter Cronkite Funeral|Family Requests Donations|Link-YourFuneralGuy

The Walter Cronkite Family has requested, in lieu of flowers that donations go to a specific charity.

The Walter and Betsy Cronkite Children have requested that Donations be made in lieu of of flowers. This is a common practice at funerals.

The Fund they would like you to make a donation to is called “The Walter and Betsy Cronkite Fund for Fair Play”.

Here is the link where the Cronkite Children would like a donation to be made

This fund has been set up by the Walter and Betsy Cronkite Foundation through the Austin CommunityFoundation.com. It is called “The Walter and Betsy Cronkite Fund for Fair Play”.

From AustinCommunityFoundation.com:

“The Walter and Betsy Cronkite Fund for Fair Play was established by the Cronkite’s children to honor the lives of their parents. Betsy and Walter Cronkite were two extraordinary individuals. Many know Walter Cronkite as the man who delivered the news of the day as the anchor of the CBS evening news from 1962-1981.”

Donations to a Charity to honor a loved one is often requested instead of sending flowers.

Walter Cronkite Funeral Service to be private. Make a donation to his Funeral Fund.

“In lieu of flowers” followed by a “charity name” or “donations to the family” is commonplace in obituaries. This can be helpful to your charity,charities or the family to lower funeral cost.

Be sure to make your donation to the Walter Cronkite Funeral Fund

Funeral Industry Funeral Blog by Your Funeral Guy

Walter Cronkite Pic from Wikepedia

“And thats the way it was”

Illinois Funeral Directors Mess- Bill to become law-YourFuneralGuy

There has been a new law passed in the Illinois Funeral Directors Mess. The bill  was sponsored by the Comptroller.  Last week it passed the legislature is slated to become law. The law is in the legislature was known as Senate Bill 1682.

All this was revealed in a Office of the Comptroller press release.

State of Illinois legislature has passed new preneed law

“The Senate approved the measure 58-0 sending it to the Governor. The House approved the legislation earlier in the week.

Hynes said the legislation (SB1682) is needed to help prevent shortfalls similar to the one that occurred with a trust fund intended to pay for consumer funerals that was used by hundreds of funeral directors and administered by the Illinois Funeral Directors Association. It modernizes and strengthens oversight of consumer funds and increases the amount of information consumers receive about their investments.

Your Funeral Guy says  that this is only the first step. Requiring the Funeral directors to put  95% of the folks money in a safe place (where is that?) will help preneed purchasers in the state. It also overall makes funeral directors in the state quite angry.

Funerals directors in the state are quite upset about the agreement that the State of Illinois, reached with Merrill Lynch opposing the agreement the comptroller and other regulators came up with. They have vowed to fight the regulators. How can that be done?

How on God’s earth will they fight the regulators? Will they simply by marked men as is often the case of those who oppose STATE of ILLINOIS politicians?

The Illinois Funeral Directors Association(IFDA) dropped their funeral bomb and funerals in Illinois will take years to recover. They may have caused increases in traditional funeral cost to happen for years to come.

Funeral Industry|Funeral blog by Your Funeral Guy.

Your Funeral Guy: Corpse Left in Hearse 2 months dead 2 years!

As mentioned before it is important to sign your Funeral (Cost) Contract. A funeral is both an emotional contract and a financial or funeral (Cost) contract. BE Sure To Sign and Understand YOUR CONTRACT! This is both for your financial and emotional protection..

According to the Associated Press and KansasCity.com some folks did not do this and there was shocking results. A cremation did not happen. Instead:

“Funeral Director Allegedly leaves Corpse in Hearse” for over 2 months,person dead 2 years!

“A funeral director faces a felony charge after police found a woman’s decomposing body in the back of a hearse. Police said the 76-year-old funeral home owner was charged Tuesday with abusing a corpse. Police said the woman died of natural causes in November 2007 at the age of 52. Relatives said they wanted her remains cremated.”

The family was negligent in that they never signed the cremation papers or paid the funeral home.

You can find out more information on your funeral cost contract either preneed or at need here.

Rest in Peace: Insider’s Tips to the Low Cost Less Stress Funeral by R Brian Burkhardt

Funeral Cost/Funeral industry Blog by Your Funeral Guy.

Source: kansascity.com

funeral cost
rest in peace insiders tips to the low cost less stress funeral

Batesville Casket gives Funeral cost Tip-YourFuneralGuy

Batesville Casket served up a low cost funeral tip. Hillenbrand  the owner of Batesville Casket Co. issued a positive statement on in it’s 1Q earnings. the tip is good for funeral directors, The numbers are not all that important  but the principle is:

They cut costs and showed a profit.

Funeral Home owners cut frills.

Example:D do not take the Funeral cadilac home at night. Drive your personal lower cost vehicle to and from work.

Funeral Consumer

Be  up front. When you walk in the door to the funeral  home say you can have my business if you negotiate lower funeral costs. Funeral home owners need your business these days. It’s the economy.

Funeral Cost/Funeral Industry Blog by Your funeral guy.

Newsworthy-Illinois Funeral Directors Association Lawsuits-Your Funeral Guy.

The Illinois Funeral Directors Association Lawsuits are newsworthy on the average cost of a funeral. Every time a preneed trust fund misapplies your funeral money it costs you the consumer. Funeral Directors lose and they pass the cost on to you.

Recently News Articles, Feb.3,4 2009 have appeared.

These articles name more facts. -Chicago Tribune

• 6 Illinois funeral directors sue own trade group
• and Springfield,IL Newspaper the State Journal Register:
  

• Tax records: Funeral trust fund officials spent money on themselves

The Chicago Tribune Article names places,and  the Illinois Comptroller.

The Springfield Journal Register article names $$, who was paid out of the fund and who may have been paid out of the fund-Senator Roland Burris (D-IL)

There is also a years worth of backgound research available on the Illinois Funeral Directors Association at

http://www.lowercostfuneral.com/rbrianblog

I have declared the average cost of a funeral in 2009 to be $8,500 USD.

Check out my blogs for more information on this.

Your Funeral Guy.

Your Funeral Guy: Funeral Cost for Profit and Not For Profit.

This may come as a surprise to you and your funeral cost. It is Not for profit Funeral Homes. I first ran into this as I was interviewing for my first job as a Funeral Director. The first not for profit funeral home I ran into was Valley Funeral Home in Appleton, Wisc.

This is from their website:

“This means that the profits that the funeral home makes are returned to the families we serve for that year in the form of stocks and dividends. (80% stock, 20% dividends.) Getting established this way was a challenge.”

Very interesting, returning cost to the client! You.

Another approach on the not for profit funeral home can happen because of dual funeral home registration. Some jewish funerals will be done this way where the cost savings goes immediately to the consumer. Quoting from the DailyRecord.com news article.

“The extra money goes back to the Jewish community, which is where it should be going,” Apter said. “We have no shareholders to answer to, no huge board of directors, just myself and Mark and our staff. If you look at the economic climate today … I saw this time after time — a family walks in, they’re handed a statement, and the cost is very high.”

Indeed different funeral guys operating out of the same facility may make it possible for the consumer to have lower funeral expenses. Kudos to these two funeral guys!

Blog by Your Funeral Guy

Be sure to let me know how you lowered the cost of a funeral.

Your Funeral Guy: Green Funeral is Low Cost, What if all the Funerals in the US were Green?

2005 is the year

287, 716,000 is the US population in 2005

2,432,000 deaths in US  2005

Now what if all these funerals were green?

Green Funerals are  low cost funerals.

Green funerals and  natural woodland burials are one way to lessen the impact of traditional funeral environmental harm.

While death is not an easy subject, keeping ethics  and convictions going forward, a green funeral  is a low environmental impact one. After all, if it is about time to go, why not go green?  So let us keep the Planet Green.

# 56 million: The approximate number of people that die on the planet in a year.

# 50 million: Trees that are cut down in India each year for funeral pyres(cremation). This releases 8 million tons of carbon dioxide.

# 200: The number of green and woodland burial sites in the U.K.

According to National Geographic, and the Scientific American

# 30 million board feet of casket–

American funerals are responsible yearly for the felling of 30 million board feet of casket wood (some of which comes from tropical hardwoods),

#90,000 tons of steel,

#1.6 million tons of concrete for burial vaults,

#800,000 gallons of embalming fluid, this cancer causing formaldehyde released into the environment. Is embalming worth this cost?

#1,000- to $2,000 the cost of a green funeral.

A traditional burial costs $7,323.00 USD according to the NFDA.

Even cremation is an environmental disaster, with a crematory putting many  toxic substances into the atmosphere, including dioxin, hydrochloric acid, sulfur dioxide, and more carbon dioxide.

I hate to disappoint folks  but cremation is not green. Cremation is not a green funeral and there is many a funeral home that calls it green.

What if all the funerals on the planet or  in the U.S. were green?

More information can be found on this funeral director’s blog.

Sources National Geographic, Planet Green, National Funeral Directors Association as well a the experience of

Your Funeral Guy.

Your Funeral Guy: Lower Cost Funeral Expenses Questions Answered

The other day I was asked questions about Low Cost Funeral Expenses. They were good questions and the answers came from Your Funeral Guy. You will find more details on all these questions at this blog.

How much do funerals generally cost?
$7,323.00 UDS…..to about 9,000 USD or more if you include Cemetery Costs
The most popular figure quoted is $6,000 USD

What are people doing to mitigate the costs of funerals?
1. Shopping around between different funeral homes, getting general price lists.

2. Negotiating with Funeral Directors Families are finding the courage to go in and negotiate with Funeral Directors due to the severe economic situation and the general lack of cash.
Funeral is in the End a Contract Negotiation in Western Civilization.

3. Choosing alternative Services

Cremation
Closed caskets
Home funerals
Green funerals
No Embalming
Caskets from an alternate sources
Urns from alternative sources.
Memorial service
4. Choosing Alternative locations with or without A Funeral Director
Church
Backyard
Park
VFW HALL
Community center
Do it all at the Cemetery like Walt Disney
5.Choosing a Low Cost Funeral Home

6. Getting your Casket and other Funeral Product On the internet or from other alternative source.

Are ‘green’ funerals becoming more popular?
Green Funerals are popular in the United Kingdom and are coming from across the pond just like cremation did in the 1970’s.
They are growing on the West Coast and the East Coast
Green Funerals are lower cost funerals because there are no vault, grave liners, traditional caskets or Embalming.
Why are funerals so expensive?
Traditional funerals and Funeral Home owners operating cost has been constantly rising. Lower Cost Funerals are growing digging into funeral home profits. It is a low cost option for consumers. .
Are more people these days buying funeral insurance?
Term Life Insurance is a good funeral cost option. Preneed Funeral Policies have fell into dispute. Every month there is an incident where a Funeral Director runs off with the preneed money.
This year we have had the Illinois Funeral Directors Association-41 million dollars funeral trust mismanagement and the National Prearranged Services 500 million Dollar Theft.
The AARP Magazine had an article in February 2008 advising folks not to prepay a Funeral. I believe that this has taken hold.

This is all from the life experience of your funeral guy.
R. Brian Burkhardt, Your Funeral Guy, Author of the funeral book Rest in Peace: Insider’s Tips to the Low Cost Less Stress Funeral

Be sure to let me know how you came in under the average cost of a funeral.

Getty Images RF