02/04/2025
As something most people don't want to think about, funerals are one of the things we are least prepared to plan and pay for as a society. There is an importance to the process of having a funeral, but in today's economy, we are prepared less than ever to be able to afford a fitting farewell for our most loved people. To help prepare for a funeral, we have to understand everything that goes into having one. The biggest issue in the planning process is, how are we going to pay for this? And does all this pomp and circumstance really matter in the end? They are just going to go in the ground or be cremated, right?
The importance of a funeral is for the survivors to say goodbye to their deceased loved ones and have a designated place to grieve. Knowing the components of where the expenses come from, may give you some insights on how to plan for a family members passing, or even your own.
The first charge everyone needs to know about, no one knows what it is for. This charge has different names, "Basic Service Fee" "Arrangements Fee" and so on. This fee, as written by the Federal Trade Commission in the Funeral Rule, is considered a non-declinable fee. But what does it do? The best way to explain the reason behind it, and why it varies from funeral home to funeral home, is to look at what it covers. This fee covers so many different aspects of the funeral, from the initial arrangement conference where you are still trying to process the person's passing, to making sure the lights stay on in the building, to filing the paperwork and making sure all the different parts of the funeral are completed and ready for that initial welcome into the chapel. This is our charge for saying, to keep helping you with the grieving process, this is what we need to keep this building and process running. It's hard to wrap your head around this cost because you don't see it happening.
There is so much unseen work in this industry, that it has a sense of mystery and disconnect with the public at large. This keeps people from understanding the overall costs associated with a funeral. As funeral directors, we would love to help you out by giving you a break in these high costs, but as you need to pay your bills, so do we.
Another big charge in the funeral is the casket. There are many different choices for caskets today, even odd ways to get them, but we are focusing on the ones provided by the funeral home today. When it comes to pricing, the range of prices is still vast and will affect the overall cost of the funeral. For example's sake, we will stick to the lower and mid-range prices. The two main materials used for these caskets are wood and steel. Inflation affects these prices due to the raw materials available to create caskets. Lumber is a great example to showcase the changes in costs. To make a casket you need a certain amount of lumber to make the outside of the casket, and there is workmanship associated with making the shape, even the plain pine caskets. The boards get cut to shape, attached together, sanded smooth, and hinges and handles put on, This is not even considering the process of making the inside of a casket look like a comfortable bed for your loved one to rest in. All these components make up the price of a casket between the materials, labor, and transport to the funeral home. Then there's the quality of making them. As there are cheaper options for the same product, like a vacuum, To get the best version of the vacuum, you'd want the one that you know will work. The same goes for a casket, you want to make sure your loved one is safely inside of it and there to be no damage to its function.
The last large costs associated to a funeral are grouped together. These costs are associated with the cemetery. The first is the cemetery. We, as funeral directors, do not have a say in the pricing the cemeteries charge. We do know the reasoning behind the charges cemeteries' choose. The cost of the grave itself is to reserve the space for your family member to rest there. This also helps contribute to overall upkeep of the grounds, this includes mowing the lawn, keeping the waste from the gravesites, taking care of fallen trees and branches. The opening and closing charge is for the digging of the grave and covering it back up. The machines used to do this are backhoes which require maintenance over time to keep operating. This also helps with reseeding the ground for the next year so the bare earth looks like it used to when the grass grows back.
The second cost associated with the cemeteries is the outer burial container or vault which is what the casket goes into in the cemetery. An outer burial container has one to two functions. The first function is to keep the ground from caving as it settles over time. That way if heavy machinery rolls over it, it doesn't sink down, along with keeping it safer for family members to walk across the cemetery due to the ground being more even. The second function of an outer burial container is to help keep external elements from entering the space where your loved one is. This is an option when we get past the concrete grave liner, the minimal option cemeteries require. The way this protects from the elements is by special treatments to the container, polymer coatings, internal extra layers, different shapes for the top lids. These all play parts in creating a seal on the container to keep out groundwater and insects. The amount of concrete needed for the base of these containers has a major price point to it due to needing special equipment to make and transfer them to the cemetery.
The prices of these "big ticket items" vary across the board due to availability and locations around the US which brings the varying costs to make a little more sense. There is also the issue of urgency for the matter, some people require burial in a shorter time frame and to get these things as quick as possible there could be extra steps involved in the process to complete the services.
To give an exact on what a funeral is going to cost in todays world is hard to determine if the variables aren't fully known. If you or a loved one wants to be prepared for this constant in life, feel free to reach out to us and find out your options to best suit your needs.
