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.

It is important that families talk about this beforehand. My MIL had a church service and burial with tea and cake in church hall. Her funeral was £5000 but that was 7 years ago.

I've decided on a silent funeral in a green burial site with no coffin but wrapped in shrouds. I want to have the least impact on the environment :-)

Of course I'm still holding out that by the time of my death body farms would be legalised in this country because if it is I'll opt for that :-)

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!

The man walking in front of the hearse would have been the person directing the funeral on the day and it is a standard part of the package for him to do that so that wouldn't have been an extra cost as he would be there whether or not he walked in front of the hearse.
It's poor show though that the person helping you arrange the funeral didn't tell you that this would happen. When I worked for a funeral director we always talked the family through what would happen on the day and this allowed families to opt out of

whatthedickens5
What is a body farm?

Similar here for my Dad's, which was in January 2023. We had a crematorium service with celebrant, simple coffin and one flower arrangement on it, no cars (we were not having a 'reception' afterwards as Dad hated Mum's and we knew he categorically didn't want us having one) - Dad spent his last few months in a nursing home, so the hearse wasn't departing from his 'home' and we were all making our own way to and from the crematorium. But all together, including undertaker's costs, crem costs, celebrant (she was a bargain - she not only conducted the service, but returned when we interred Dad's ashes with Mum's at the cemetery and did us a short service there) etc, it came to just over £4K.

It's remarkable how the costs add up. Throw in cars to carry chief mourners and a 'reception/wake' and you can easily pay more than £6K.

Most people of my parents' age have some sort of policy - My Dad's more than covered the funeral costs mentioned above, and the cost of putting his details on the gravestone and replacing it, etc. Do not get me started on that process - suffice to say, IF there is a family plot of any kind, ensure that the "owner's" (in this case, my Dad) will leaves ownership to someone. We didn't know this and the process for transferring it and getting Dad into his own grave and stone replaced was astonishingly difficult.

That seems a fairly average price. We've just prepaid £5k for a burial. £1k of that relates to the grave digging etc with it being a burial. No ceremony bar what is said at the graveside and no wake is included in that.

A cheaper funeral is entirely your choice, but your post is quite dismissive of other approaches

Feel like I paid too much now! Used Co-op for two funerals in the last 18 months, both costing around £4.5k and including:
deceased arriving in a basic hearse and relatively cheap coffin with coop providing bearers
Crematorium 30 minute service
30 order of service booklets
Celebrant
One wreath on coffin

No wake, no cars for anyone, no photo presentations or anything fancy, ashes collected by us from the coop after

Edited as I realise now it was £4.5k not 5, so feel slightly better but still quite a chunk for people to have to find!

DH's was c£4k. We did have cars but other than that everything was pretty much the basic offer, and we had the "reception" at home, so that's not included in the £4k.

He always said don't waste money on a funeral, bury me in a cardboard box. He was cremated, but I did consider a cardboard coffin. They are outrageously expensive!

It’s like weddings and babies and taxes - inevitable and the sort of thing prices can be bumped up for with the addition of getting to people when they feel awful

A friend of mine’s father left his body to medical science, so no funeral expenses at all, just a small celebration of his life with family.

Hmmm.... partly. But I think there are certain minimum costs, just as there are for a wedding.

If you want to have a catered wake, then room hire and food for 50 (or whatever) does just have a certain cost, even if it's sandwiches and tea rather than a full meal. If you want a celebrant, their time needs to be paid, both to cover the day and to cover visits to learn about the deceased. Funeral director, hearse, pall bearers - again, not a huge variation in time required, possibly a slight variation in cost by region owing to wages.

I guess the main variations are flowers, coffin types, additional cars and memorial stones/other.

Cheapest direct cremation is about £1k these days. You can pretty much spend as much as you want going up from that.

Funeral costs come from the deceased's estate - if there is no money in the estate to pay for it, you can apply to the council for a very basic funeral for them.

If there is no money in the estate and you want more than the very basic, then somebody else has to pay for it. There's no obligation to do this, and no one can force you to, but the council's obligation is only for a very basic funeral, which is really done on public health grounds.

Get another quote.

Dad's was £7k:
2 x cars
Orders of service
Chapel of rest
Church service then crematorium
3 x flower arrangements
Wake at a local hotel

Wow - thank you all for taking the time to respond and share your experiences! This is eye-opening indeed.

I am not involved in organising the funeral, and neither is DH, but the siblings are looking into contributing financially... I'm not sure if SIL ever made a plan for this - she was only in her mid-forties and diagnosed with cancer just over a year ago, and she was really ill towards the end, so there might not have been any time.

I will, however, now go and check if we had made any note of funeral arrangements in our will (honestly can't remember), and if not, I will set this up asap!

I didn't find anything particularly expensive it just theres quite a list of bits and pieces and it all adds up.

The crem fees aren't cheap but the actual provision of that service has to cover crem costs. I've no idea how it's worked out and if councils can "profit" from the listed charges.

If I am in a position where I have to also sort my Dad's (who has moved to live with us 150 miles away as he has worsening dementia) I should probably choose a direct funeral near us and then hire a cafe in town, like I did with Mum, and do an invite there as a memoriam with one eulogy which I will read and some photos. His friends, those left behind, are more likely to go then rather than a long trip to the crem both for them, and for Dad too from here back home.

Although the way its going (up twice most nights!) he will be burying me!

My parents have told us they dont want to feed people at a wake and the money instead is to be spent on a holiday for myself and 2 siblings.
They want a humanist burial.

It isnt a show as you say!

Ita interesting becuase I thought I didn't want to "waste" the money or to have a big fuss when DH died, but at the last minute I changed my mind and we had a simple ceremony with people back to the house afterwards. It cost about £6k, but I'm everso glad I did it. I think it helped me a lot to have everyone who loved him together like that.

We arranged 3 funerals in the space of one year 10years ago.
Two were big affairs with full Requiem mass and hundreds at the wake. Not including the headstone we paid about £8000 each which I thought was good.( we didn’t have to pay for the venue for the wake )
The other was a Cremation with only a handful of people and sandwiches and coffee back at the house after. It cost probably a couple of thousand nothing more.

It depends what you chose to do but I would have thought £6000 isn’t the most expensive these days.

I agree you shouldn't have to have expensive things for show, but would also say that if you want something, then have it. Lots of people asked when I was organising my mum's funeral if I was going to have donations instead of flowers and wouldn't that be good. No, because my mum loved flowers and I wanted to have flowers. Anyone who thought that was wasteful, that's up to them but they could jog on if they thought I was going to take any notice.

The upper end of normal.

This is what I think - DMum paid 5K fairly recently but that includes the seperate wake at pub.

She had to be encouraged to do a funeral at all - and encouage to pick flowers -and was glad in end she had and felt it was money well spent.

DH uncle shopped around but IL were on hoilday - everyone insisted they go - and there was no rush to have funeral - and he likes doing that can and is called tight with money - he got everything needed and saved a huge amount but it was much more work - no way would Mum or any of us have been up for it there was to much else to deal with and Mum was really fragile but wanted/needed to be in charge or arrangements.

Bloody hell some of these costs.. we paid a few grand recently and again a few years ago.

Sounds about right. I’m in Scotland and my mums was a smidge under £4k, eight years ago. That wasn’t the basic package but it certainly wasn’t anything fancy. Didn’t include a car.

I agree with the flowers thing.
My parents were keen gardeners and loved flowers
Given the choice they would have flowers so we didn’t go for donations either and loads of people even gifted potted plants which we were able to plant at the grave.

My MIL wasn’t bothered so we said donations to a charity she liked. Not one donation was actually made but a lot of people told us they did 😉

I work for a company dealing with probate the cheapest novice Iv seen was £1.5k just a coffin basic the most expensive was £8.5k the full works , wake etc .