Buying a casket for a loved one is one of the most difficult purchases you will ever make. Most families don’t know how much they should expect to pay for a casket. This can make them vulnerable prey for the salesman tactics of funeral directors. When it comes to planning a dignified funeral, there is no need to overpay. The key is knowing how much you should expect to pay for funeral items, as well as how to cut costs effectively.
Step 1 For Planning a Funeral: Start With Your Budget
Buying a casket is very similar to buying a car or a house in this respect. Your first consideration should always be your budget. Once you know how much you are able to afford, let that guide the buying process. Here are some questions you should ask yourself as you work out a budget:
- Does my loved one have a life insurance policy? Does the policy cover funeral expenses? If so, how much money does it allocate for the funeral?
- How much money can I safely pull out of my savings?
- Will these costs cause me to go into debt?
- Is the whole family chipping in for the funeral or just the closest relatives?
- What other funeral items will I need to pay for?
- Is there a way I can reduce funeral costs while still honoring my loved one?
If you and your family need to save money on funeral expenses, here are some tips for keeping costs down:
- Buy a casket online.
- Opt for cremation only - Or consider cremation and a viewing rather than burial.
- Consider an at-home funeral, so you can skip the services of a funeral home.
- Host a minimalist funeral with fewer flowers and an elegantly simple casket.
- Choose a cemetery that does not require the use of a vault.
- If you do choose to use a vault, buy the vault online to save money.
- Skip the embalming.
What Should I Expect To Pay For a Funeral?
The cost of a funeral will depend greatly on the scale and the level of grandeur. Some families have a more “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” approach. So they may opt for direct cremation and then a small family gathering to spread the ashes. Other families want to have a large funeral with a grand casket and numerous flower displays. However, most families have a funeral that is somewhere in the middle. The scale of the funeral will depend on the budget and what is right for your family.
It is highly recommended that you price shop before you commit to an item or a funeral home. Under the FTC Funeral Rule, all funeral homes are required to give you accurate price information over the phone. They must also provide a written price list, as well as disclose honestly what is and isn’t required in your state. Some funeral homes will have higher prices than others. As a general rule, avoid buying funeral packages if you work with a funeral home. Packages are normally a way to convince families to pay more for services that they don’t really want or need.
What Should I Expect To Pay For a Casket?
When you go to buy a casket, you have two options: buy a casket online or buy a casket from the funeral home. When you buy a casket online, you can expect to pay between $689 and $4,500. A majority of caskets from Overnight Caskets are in the $1,000 to $2,000 range. Since shipping is free, you shouldn’t expect to pay more than $2,000 for a casket if you buy online.
However, if you choose to buy a casket from a funeral home, you should expect to pay more. Most funeral home caskets cost between $2,250 and $6,000. Some luxury funeral homes carry caskets that cost as much as $10,000. The reason why funeral home caskets cost more is the markup. Since funeral homes have lots of overhead to cover, they have to inflate the price of the casket to cover their expenses.
How Much Does a Burial Vault Cost?
A burial vault is a steel or concrete box that surrounds the casket to protect it from the elements. It also keeps the group of the cemetery level, and ensures that no part of the casket is visible to the surface if a cemetery experiences a flood, ground shifting, or erosion.
There is no state that legally requires you to have a burial vault: however, certain cemeteries may require one. Be sure to check with the cemetery to know if you need to purchase a burial vault.
When you buy a burial vault online, you can expect it to cost around $1,400. Unlike caskets, vaults do not have to be pretty or to look a certain way. A vault should be sturdy, standardly sized to fit into a plot, and built to be resistant to weather.
When you buy a vault from a funeral home, it will be in the $2,000 to $4,000 range. As with caskets, funeral homes will normally increase item prices to help cover their expenses.
How Much Should I Pay For a Headstone?
Headstones are a very important part of a funeral because they will be where you visit your loved one in the future. When you choose a headstone, you essentially have 4 options for styles: flat, pillow, slant, or upright. Flat headstones will be the most affordable. If you buy a headstone online, flat headstones start at $215 and the price will go up depending on what you want engraved on it. The next cheapest option is a pillow headstone, which starts at $589. Pillow headstones are similar to flat ones, but they are larger and more visible.
If you want a standing headstone, your options are a slant headstone and an upright headstone. Slant headstones start at $794 and upright headstones start at $1,449. Overnight Caskets’ sister company, Signature Headstones, also offers specialty headstones that are designed to match your loved one’s personality. Popular shapes include angels, hearts, floral, and religious imagery.
However, if you buy a casket from a funeral home, you can expect to pay as much as $1,000 for a flat headstone. The average price for all types of headstones is $2,000, but upright headstones usually start at $3,000 or more.
Since it is very important for your loved one to have a headstone, it is recommended that you save money by buying a headstone online. Cemeteries are legally required to accept any items you buy from third-party vendors without adding any extra fees. Be sure to coordinate the delivery time with the cemetery in order to ensure that their staff is there to meet the delivery truck.
Should I Pay For Embalming?
Before you consider whether or not you want embalming, it helps to know what exactly embalming is. Embalming is part of the traditional funeral in which a body is filled with certain chemicals to preserve them and keep them looking “life-like.” Most embalming procedures involve some element of makeup or facial reconstruction to make the loved one look similar to how they looked when the family knew them.
Embalming is not required by law, except for when a body crosses state lines or is transported on a train or plane. There is a common misconception that embalming protects public health. However, it actually has no effect because most viruses and diseases cannot be caught from a body. In cases where someone did have a dangerous illness, embalming is actually prohibited in both Canada and Hawaii.
In short, you do not need to pay for embalming if you do not want to. It is totally up to you and your family. If you are considering having your loved one embalmed, here are some pros and cons to consider.
Pros
- Embalming makes for a more comfortable experience during a viewing. Your loved one will look as you knew them.
- Embalming will preserve the body and keep your loved one safe from decomposition.
- Knowing that your loved one is preserved can be comforting.
- If you want to host multiple viewings or hold off on the viewing, embalming will keep the body fresh and acceptable to be seen.
Cons
- Embalming can be bad for the environment because it is possible for the chemicals involved to leak into the soil and the water base over time.
- It can be expensive to have a loved one embalmed. If you and your family want to cut funeral costs, it makes the most sense to skip embalming.
- If you are familiar with the show 6 Feet Under, you know the scene where one of the sons is angry at how sanitized funerals have become. Many families today have a similar complaint: embalming hides the reality of death and sanitizes a natural process a little too much. Families who want to authentically face death often skip embalming in order to avoid sanitizing mortality.
Whether you are an environmentalist, a minimalist, or a realist, you are completely allowed to skip the embalming process. Not only is it a way to cut funeral costs, you are also saved from having to pay for something that you don’t need. If a funeral director gets pushy about embalming, just remind them that embalming is not actually required by law, nor does it protect public health. Embalming is a personal choice for the family to make.
Money-Saving Alternatives To The Traditional Funeral
When most Americans imagine a funeral, they have a certain mental image in mind. However, this does not mean that you are stuck with the traditional way of doing things. In light of several high-profile funeral-related memoirs, a movement has arisen to embrace death and to stop sanitizing funerals so much. You are also no longer chained to a funeral home to handle the body and the funeral details. In fact, The Death Positive Movement points out that up until recently in American history, funerals were handled by the family at home. They also advocate that hiding death behind closed doors and handing off loved ones to strangers does more harm than good for those who are grieving.
If you and your family want an alternative to the expensive, traditional funeral, here are some options to consider:
- The family gets the proper transportation paperwork and keeps their loved one at home.
- The loved one is surrounded by ice for the duration of the viewing.
- The family buys a casket online, which is delivered to their home.
- Depending on the location of the burial, the family transports the casket to a plot on their property or to a cemetery.
- A service is held at the grave site and the casket is buried.
- The family can choose how to mark the grave, depending on whether they chose a family plot on someone’s property or a traditional cemetery. Many families who bury loved ones on their property will choose to plant a tree over the grave. Please note: you will need special paperwork to bury someone on private property, and it will vary by state.
- Similar to a DIY funeral, the body is kept at home for the viewing.
- When it is time, the body is placed in a biodegradable casket or a shroud.
- Most states have cemeteries or pieces of land that allow for natural burial.
- Your loved one will be placed in the ground and allowed to return to nature. Depending on the rules of the area where you bury them, you may or may not be allowed to mark the location. In most natural burial preserves, a stone or a tree may mark the location.
- The key is that your loved one cannot be embalmed for a natural burial. They also should not be buried with anything that will not biodegrade on its own over time.
Buying Your Casket Online
Whether you want to cut costs on a traditional funeral or hold a DIY funeral, the first step is to buy a casket online. If you are looking for other ways to save money, consider buying the vault and headstone online as well. If you have any questions about the process, contact Overnight Caskets with any questions.