Your family will be grieving your loss when that time comes. You can relieve some of the stress from them by pre-planning and paying for your funeral. Family members will work with the funeral home staff to execute your funeral wishes, and the costs will already be taken care of. Here are the major costs you need to plan for and how pre-paying works for your funeral plan.
Cremation or Burial?
This is a good starting point for your planning because it influences many other choices you'll make later. Making this decision and documenting it in your plan also removes that decision from your family, who may not know what your wishes are. Once you've made that decision, there are a number of other choices that affect your funeral plan's costs:
Casket or urn - If you'll be buried, select the type of casket you wish. If you'll be cremated, you can still be buried in a casket, or you can choose from a variety of urns for your remains.
Standard plot or columbarium - A casket burial must be done in a cemetery using their standard-sized plot. An urn can be buried in a columbarium in smaller plots in the ground or in a visitation facility niche above ground.
Cemetery Selection
Choose the cemetery in which you wish to be laid to rest. This is another decision you can free up from your family. You can select the desired plot for your casket or niche for your urn. The funeral home will help you arrange to pre-pay the cemetery for the space and services, too.
Options for Your Funeral Service
Now you can outline how you wish your funeral service to be held. Some of the options to decide upon and include in your plan are:
- Where the service is to be held, such as the funeral home or in a church.
- Whether or not there is to be a visitation service with a viewing.
- What clothing should be put on you for the viewing.
- What kinds of floral arrangements should be present and if your family or the funeral home should organize them.
- What other items should be present at the service.
- Whether or not there will be a graveside service.
Paying for It All
Once the plan is put together, talk with the funeral director about pre-payment. This takes a big burden off of your family if they don't have to worry about how to pay for your funeral. There are two ways you can do a pre-payment of your funeral plans:
- Purchase a burial insurance policy - You'll buy a policy and make the funeral home the beneficiary. When you pass away, the funeral director will cash in your policy and use the proceeds to cover all of the costs.
- Put money into a trust fund - You can put money in an interest-bearing trust that goes to the funeral home upon your death.
The funeral home can help you with either option.
The Next Step is to Communicate
Let your family know what you have done and where the documents can be found about your funeral plans. Let them know you've paid for everything, too, so they don't mistakenly pay for something that's already been handled.
For more help, contact a service such as Serenity Funeral Service in Edmonton.
