Funeral costs - do I need a reality check?

[cloudjumper]

For background - my SIL passed away a few weeks ago, and BIL is now organising her funeral. He’s told us that it will cost £6000! It’ll be a cremation.

I have never had to organise one myself, is that really what it costs to hold a funeral these days?!? If so, how can people afford this? Do you use life insurance etc? I’m just trying to get my head around this.

The upper end of normal.

Have a look at coop pre payment plans for an idea of prices although that doesn’t includes flowers, notices in newspapers, memorial cards and the wake.

Yeah I think you’re out of touch with costs.

Last family member we lost had cremation, service, flowers & cars for £7500. Plus on top of that a buffet etc for the wake.

Lots of people now pre-pay this so that families don’t have the cost to bare. My husband’s granda has already paid for his funeral through a monthly plan.

Some of those funeral plans are a bit shit though. My DM took out a Sun Life one about 20 years ago and it will only pay out about £2,500. Better than nothing, but good job I looked into it as it allowed her to make other plans.

I was a funeral arranger until a couple of years ago. You can get it a bit cheaper but once you've added the funeral directors fees to the cost of the cremation, a celebrant/minister etc then it all adds up.

I would recommend having either an insurance policy (eg over 50s if you're old enough) or a funeral plan. When you buy a funeral plan you pay today's prices (can be paid in instalments). You can pay for either funeral directors costs alone, or FD costs plus money towards cost of cremation/burial/celebrant/flowers etc. At time of need, the funeral directors costs will not have risen. The third party fees (cremation etc) may go up, as the FD has no control over those. We had people who made huge savings as they'd taken out their plans decades before they died and they were paying decade-old prices. The added advantage is you can add to the plan your wishes with regards to music, what you want to be dressed in, readings, do you want to be embalmed/viewed etc, so it also takes away a lot of that stress from loved ones when you die.

£4000 for my Grans which will happen in a few weeks. Yorkshire and a small bare bones affair.

I completely agree with this. When DM (very unexpectedly) died, I was more than happy to pay someone else to deal with the minutiae, it suited me to have an appointment where someone talked us through the options and then took the reins. All we had to do was deliver some clothes for her to the funeral directors, send them some pictures, choose the hymns, and buy the flowers. We didn’t have the mental capacity to deal with anything more than that and we were grateful it was a service we could pay for.

It was ten years ago and we spent about £5k on the funeral, plus another £2.5k on a drinks reception at the wake. We were able to forward the bills to her bank and have the cost paid for directly out of the funds in her bank account.

I don't think it's performance?! We had a standard church funeral for my mum. Wooden coffin, burial, flowers (standard funeral flowers, nothing fancy), wake (food and drink at a local social club), plot at the cemetery plus headstone and engraving = £7,500.00.

Oh and sorry forgot to add two cars (well technically, just the hearse and one other car).

The biggest thing is that people often can’t cope with organising after death. It’s all raw and upsetting

My grandmother died 2 years ago. Grandfather and her both had/ have pre paid for co op funerals sorted. My grandfather worked for Co op for years and knew the whole process. But still, when she died he was distraught and the fact that someone just did everything that was planned for 20 years ago made it easier for him.

It’s no wonder afternoon TV ads aimed at oldies, are awash with funeral plans, as well as mobility aids.

You didn't have to do that though. That's my point. Some people feel the need for those bits.

The whole thing is a performance. Never again, direct cremation all the way here.

Fact is, anyone can do what they want when it comes to body disposal. People deal with grief differently and there are no set rules. But nor should they feel pressure in spending more thousands when they don't need to.

My best friend's mum died last year, and I helped her with the organisation, etc.
No cars, a humanist celebrant, cremation with basic coffin (because we're just going to burn it!), and minimal flowers, and a soup/sandwich funeral tea was just over £3k. This was in Wales, so not sure about other areas.

Pretty normal. My family member had a savings account specifically for her funeral. It had about £7.5k in it & covered all the costs. I prefer this approach to buying a pre paid plan, gives much more flexibility.
Sorry for your loss.

I lost both my parents in 2023, and they had very similar funerals - basic coffin, family flowers, order of service,celebrant and cremation. I think with wake costs we paid around £6k each. These weren't big flash funerals, they're not like that at all.

Luckily for us cost wasn't an issue, it was paid out of the estates. But when my (now ex) mother in law died she didn't have any estate so we all chipped in. Ironically I'm sure it cost more than my parent's....

Hi @cloudjumper , £6,000 does not sound over the top, but funerals are expensive now. My MIL passed away last Sept, and she bought a pre-paid funeral plan for about £2,500 in 2007 (Co-Op), which if we paid for it ourselves would have been nearly £5,000, This included service at Crematorium, cremation, coffin, hearse, one car to follow hearse, pallbearers, etc.

We paid extra for funeral order of service from Co-Op (£89), double ended flower coffin spray from a local florist for £100, and bought food for after the funeral from Costco.

The costs mount up if you get extra limos, buy the flowers from the funeral home (who usually outsource to a local florist), and buy extra funeral stationery such as photo cards, memory pins etc).

Husband and I are probably going to go for a direct funeral, which costs about £2,000 currently if you purchase in advance.

Funeral Directors are businesses and they do upsell and have been investigated for anticompetitive behaviours .

I remember sitting with my husband when he was in absolute grief about his son passing away and thinking - we are being upsold to and it is so easy for them to do.

I'm happy to pay for them to do the admin that we didn't want to do - but I remember my sister organising my mum's and us both just looking at each other when we realised we must have ticked the box for man walking slowly in front of the funeral car and paid for it. Not something mum would ever have wanted and neither did we!

Also we needn't have paid for cars - but actually it was nice not to have to worry about getting there and back.

This is why people should organise their funeral wishes when alive and not leave it for grieving families. Ditto wills.
It's part of being an adult.

Last funeral in our family cost around £4500. Cremation, donation to church minister, funeral tea, & burial of ashes in the family plot. All from the deceased estate. We chose not to have cars, other than the hearse itself.

We did have flowers, but those we paid ourselves, they probably totalled about £400.

What's a donation to minister? They have a charge for their services

Yes that's about the average price.
I've paid for mine.
Arranged everything.
All my daughters have to do is call a number and register my death.. then everything will be arranged.
I've paid extra for any additional costs.
I know they will go to pieces... so don't want extra worry.

@GotToWearShades
What's a donation to minister? They have a charge for their services

How do you think ministers make a living?

£6000 doesn't sound like a lot, tbh.

My dad died during Covid, so we had a very slimmed down service. The crematorium, funeral directors, hearse, and service sheets for 10 came to £3000, iirc.

If we were to add on things like catering for 50, then you can imagine how the costs can mount up.

I am a funeral verger, so go to a lot of funerals. It's very rare to see funeral cars for families nowadays - I think Covid made us realise that these were a bit of a luxury. The other thing that is horrendously expensive are the flowers.

It was £1k for dhs direct cremation and then £300 for his wake.

No way was I having a funeral after the way his family behaved while he was ill.

When step dad died, we paid for a funeral director to take care of everything, we were new to this part of the country and needed help

There's only one crematorium here so that pushed the price up - hearse and family car from the NW to Belfast

What really pushed the price up to eye watering amounts, was getting his families grave opened back in England - cost as much as the cremation and service !!

Funerals here are BIG, seriously BIG. We have the wake for the two days between death and service, then there's lunch or tea after - and seriously Ive attended funerals with 500+

Myself, Im going direct cremation and ashes scattered there in the memorial garden. No service. I dont have children of my own and I cant see the step kids stepping up if their dad goes first. Hoping to live a long life so doubt there will be a huge friendship group still around either ( mums 86 and seen off all her peers )

Funerals are about the living

It really depends what's included, how expensive the coffin is, if there is a celebrant and how expensive they are, flowers included or not, embalming if requested, cars or number of cars. Any special arrangements. Is that including the funeral tea or wake or is that extra. It sounds on the expensive side, but it's really how long is a piece of string. You could ask for a breakdown of costs to see if anything is on the extravagant side.