To ask how much does a funeral cost?

[Nospringflower]

Just thinking about my funeral and thinking about having one in a green woods dedicated to this.

The plot costs £1000, then you pay for a stone to mark the spot (£300) and then theres the plot preparation (£300) and an admin fee £85. There will also be the cost of the celebrant and the eco coffin.

I'm not doing it to be cheap - I quite like the set up but just wondered how it compares to being buried / cremated in the more conventional way. I suspect a grave stone isnt cheap but no idea about the rest.

Does anyone mind telling me - have looked it up on council website but cant find costs.
Thanks

Re whether a service matters - I'm not religious and always thought a funeral wouldn't mean much to me, but having lost my father recently, I was surprised at how comforting it was to have everyone gathered that loved and respected him (many of whom I didn't know) and how the ritual of a funeral service got us through the day and gave closure. The funeral directors were a huge help too. It helped that the eulogy was written and delivered by a family member though: I have been to funerals that have felt impersonal and cold.

It is a lot of money though: I was really taken aback by the cost, especially as it seemed that even going for a basic coffin and flowers didn't save much money. It's not like you feel up to shopping around for the best quote either when you're in the midst of it, so organising exactly what you want ahead of time seems like a good idea, if slightly morbid.

I cant decide about afterwards. I dont want to offend anyone but I often think the whole going back afterwards can be a bit awkward and so I was thinking I might not bother about it and then anyone who has come to my 'service' can just go for a drink with whoever they like rather than having to go back to an organised reception. However, someone I said this to was horrified and said that she liked the whole meeting up with relatives afterwards and that this was part of the whole send off.

How old are you, OP? Is it something you just want to plan so you know it's sorted and you never have to think about it again?

My Grandad's last year came in at around £7000. Nothing lavish about it.

I am 51 so hopefully have a few more years left! We have recently been making our wills though which has probably made me think more about it and also someone I know recently died and was buried in this woods which again made me think about it more. I am also someone who is slightly morbid I think - I have always had songs that I wanted to get played at my funeral! That was another dilemma though - I was thinking you cant really have singing in the woods and bringing along music seems a bit weird so then it would need to just be some people talking / a poem.

But again, I have a poem I like up my sleeve! The laugh is that I am a really disorganised person and the one thing I am most organised about is my funeral!

Cremation is generally cheaper than burial. If you don't require a service at the crem then the fee is around £350, otherwise £650-£1000 (each crem sets their own prices).
You can do a funeral yourself but most people find that they prefer to have a funeral director who will deal with storage of the deceased, paperwork, arrangements etc. This is likely to cost £2000 and would include basic coffin, hearse & bearers.
If you want to bury either a whole body or ashes you will have to pay: plot purchase, interment fee, possibly a maintenance fee, grave diggers fee. If it is a council cemetery or parish churchyard the fees will be at least doubled if you don't live in the locality.
A minister or celebrant will charge about £200.

The only time my extended family see each other now is at funerals! We are spread all over the country and people make an effort to come for a funeral whereas they would not normally bother meeting up. It depends on your family dynamic. Having a 'wake' afterwards gives everyone a chance to chat and meet the other side of the family. At DD's wake we had around 120 people from varying aspects of her life. Many of them mixed and mingled as they knew of each other's existence but had never met.

As an aside a Prepaid Funeral Plan is a thing to take out if you have spare cash. These guarantee to cover the cost of the funeral directors fees and contribute towards the crem/burial fees etc. You can take them out on behalf of other people (eg aged parents). Also, please check, but this also used to be an accepted way of spending savings that the dwp didn't penalise you for.
Just make sure it is a guaranteed plan and not just life insurance.

I want a cremation without a service. About £1000.
Don't see the point in spending thousands.

It's not a 'paupers' cremation it's just a simple cremation with no service, no coffin and no hearse. Family just go along and collect the ashes. I'm sure they would put them in a nice pot for a few extra pounds. £1000.

Nothing stopping you from having a family get together to celebrate that persons life. Doesn't have to be a service though I'm sure a vicar would do a church one (cost though) and bless the ashes.

Recently lost my beloved step-dad (October). Funeral costs including flowers, cremation, death certificates, nice coffin, vicar for service, notice in local papers and family cars etc. approx £6,800 - 'tis not cheap!

My dad's funeral was on Friday and it all came to £3,800 with the wake £400 on top of that (buffet plus £200 behind the bar)
The 3,800 included coffin at £450, 3 cars at £200 each, funeral directors fees, cremation, orders of service, vicar fees, moving body from hospital where he died to chapel, the lot.

6k for my DBrother's funeral 3 months ago in London. That included:

-plot in cemetery with 1 space on top

• coffin
• humanist celebrant and order of service in cemetery chapel
• hearse and 1 limousine
• flowers

No wake and no headstone.

Forgot embalming included in that and funeral director fees

I dont want to donate my body. I am quite sentimental and want buried and to have a lasting place where people can come to if they choose to (although suspect my woods in the middle of nowhere might not be where they come very often!). It dow look beautiful though.

I am just the opposite. I want my ashes scattered into a river. I don't want there to be a place which my DSs will feel they ought to visit and feel bad if they don't. If they remember me in their hearts, that will be enough.

dh and me have coop funeral plans in place, don't want the financial hassle for loved ones.

i was reading graves are 'lucky' if they get visited after 8 /10 years, but as someone who visits regularly my gramps, i see that many graves around five years never seem to be tended

My Dad's funeral cost 8k, but we had two services (one in a church and one in the crematoruim - that means two sets of vicar and organist fees), and a willow coffin, which was expensive (but lovely). That also included the wake with a buffet in a local golf club and two cars - which also needed to take us from the church to the crematorium.There were probably extra funeral director fees as well because the body had to be moved to get the death certificate (long story, but bloody nightmare)

My dbro and Dsil have just organised her mothers funeral, it's next week.
Her mother had nothing of value and left nothing but debts, there is no money to pay for a funeral so dbro and DSIL are having to pay.

(She has a big family several siblings and uncles/aunts/cousins all who are insistent there must be a funeral but none have offered to contribute anything, when DSil suggested just letting the council give her mother a paupers funeral, which would mean no service there was an uproar, so she's been forced to organise and pay for a funeral.)

The opted for the cheapest things possible.
A 'budget' coffin,
A cremation as an 'unpopular time',
No vicar (a minister friend of our family has offered to say a few words)
No cars or flowers.
They are basically just paying for the cheapest coffin, a cremation at the cheapest time, and the funeral director driving the body to the crematorium (plus his fee)

The full cost is £2290

They shopped around (with funeral directors) and this was the cheapest quote they found.

They did look into a self directed funeral, where you organise it all yourself, they were quoted £250 for transporting the body, £950 for the cremation and £400 for a coffin, plus whatever they would have had to have paid to have the body stored until the cremation.

Do you have a savings account where the money is saved up? I'm a single parent and this kind of stuff worries me so much xxx

Do you have a link to a website op? I like your woods idea, it sounds very nice.

I've just looked at the woodland funeral at my nearby crematorium it's total cost is £1333.95 and totally green. I'm going to see if I can book it, it's just what I was looking for.

My father had a beautiful green funeral, willow casket, family speakers and the funeral director , flowers and will have a slate memorial stone. This was around four thousand and we organised a pub buffet afterwards. It was a lovely send off and a gorgeous location. I have told my girls to pack me off to the crematoriam as cheaply as possible then scatter me somewhere nice. It is a bit of a worry so maybe I will prepay something at some point but I guess unless my circs change a lot, they will get the dosh back from my estate.

I really like the idea of a woodland burial. I've been to too many hideous crematoriums where a fake mahogany coffin with brass handles which cost over £1000 gets slid along train tracks behind a naff curtain to be incinerated.

I said to my daughter not to waste money on an inexpensive coffin and to go with a biodegradable cardboard box. She said "I can't bury you in a cardboard box!"