Posts Tagged ‘pre-planning’

The Best Age to Pre-Plan a Funeral

By now, we have all heard the advice from funeral directors and financial experts: making advance arrangements for your funeral is a smart move that will save your family money, heartache, and the stress that so often accompanies an unexpected death. (more…)

How Much is Too Much to Spend on a Funeral?

When it comes to giving your loved one a fitting farewell, you might be tempted to say that no amount of money is too much to spend on the perfect funeral. After all, funeral planning is something you only get to do for somebody once, and after the decisions have been put into action, there is no turning back. (more…)

Is Winter the Best Time to Pre-Plan a Funeral?

Like most industries, there is a busy season and a non-busy season for funeral homes. Although no one can predict their time of death, funeral homes tend to see more traffic during the summer months. More families choose this time to make pre-arrangements, purchase cemetery plots, and inter ashes they may have been holding onto since the winter. Because it can be difficult to open up the ground under piles of snow (and because gathering funeral guests around the holidays is almost impossible), people may also put off traditional burial until the warmer months. (more…)

How to Have a Funeral in Space

There is something about setting a funeral in space that makes us feel immortal. Maybe it is the vast size of it, spreading out over billions of galaxies. Maybe it is the timelessness, the idea that anything jettisoned out into space will keep moving forever. It could even be the beauty of it—the twinkling of a thousand starry nights is something humans have been admiring for centuries. (more…)

How to Start a Memorial Scholarship Fund

When a loved one passes away, we often want to find something that honors their memory in a big way—and a scholarship fund is a good platform for doing just that. By providing a foundation for someone’s education, you are giving a gift that lasts an entire lifetime. And by making it part of a loved one’s legacy (by including their name on the scholarship or earmarking the funds for a field of study they were passionate about), you can ensure that their memory lives on in an important way. (more…)

Talking to Elderly Parents about Funeral Plans

Almost any discussion about advance funeral plans with the people you love is going to be uncomfortable. Not only do you have to bring up finances and religion (two things that put a strain on many families), but you also have to confront the idea of your own mortality. (more…)

The Funeral Home Staff

When you plan a funeral for a loved one, chances are you will be in contact with the funeral director and/or the funeral assistant for most of the time. These individuals serve as the point of communication for almost all your burial and cremation needs, making it easy for you to form a personal connection and ensure that you receive the high level of service you deserve. (more…)

What to Do When a Funeral Home Goes out of Business

One of the biggest warnings against pre-paying for a funeral is what happens if the funeral home goes out of business. The entire point of pre-arrangement is that you can solidify your funeral plans ahead of time, leaving you worry-free and able to spend your money however you wish. So, the idea that a funeral home might someday terminate services and leave you holding a useless contract is one that may be understandably frightening. (more…)

Importance of Pre-Planning and End-of-Life Discussions with Family

Conversations about death are never easy – and conversations about your own death are even more complicated. Not only are there financial issues to bring up (a tricky subject in many families), but there is no way to talk about your end-of-life plans without emotions getting in the way. (more…)

What to Bring to a Prearrangement Meeting

We all know that one of the best ways to save money on burial costs and ensure that your wishes are carried out is to preplan a funeral. However, the act of preplanning a funeral can be pretty stressful. After all, you might be setting up huge financial payments, confronting your own feelings regarding death, and making important decisions all at the same time. (more…)