Funeral Expenses

When my parents passed away, they were buried at the National Cemetery on the nearby Air Force base. That made us fairly lucky in knowing that the cemetery part of the expenses were taken care of and the only expense that I had was in the costs for the funeral home and casket for my mom and dad. I was completely unprepared when my mom passed away, no one had expected it and as sudden as it was, there was nothing but a hazy fog that we wended our way through.

I paid a bit under $2,500.00 for the most basic of funeral services for my mom. No public viewing, only a few close family. The most basic of coffins, which my dad had felt was the one my mom would have liked the best anyway, and transportation to the cemetery in the funeral home's hearse.

Even when they can be kept to a minimum, the costs of funeral expenses are a major expense at a very difficult time for a family. There are some ways to reduce the costs, but there are always going to be some major costs associated with final expenses.

When my father passed away we were a bit more savvy and a knew that it was going to happen, so we were not quite as caught off guard as we had been with my mom. One of the things that we had not known until after my mom's funeral was paid for was that the State would help low income families with funeral expenses, so while it had cost out of pocket with my mom, the State helped with my father's final expenses, then the government had helped a lot with the military honors ceremony on the base. And the costs for the funeral itself were kept down by a few things that not many people even realize can be done. The family dressed my father, and having a car restoration shop in the family, we worked with the local transportation museum to fully restore an antique Cadillac Hearse that they owned to be used for my father's final transportation to the cemetery. The hearse then placed on display at the museum. I also made the memorial book myself, rather than purchase the $45 one that the funeral home had wanted to bundle into the costs of everything else.

Even so, the funeral home expenses were still over $2,300.00 for my father's funeral. Costs that were insisted on being paid up front by the family to the funeral home.