To really really hate these funeral plan adverts?!

[sharkirasharkira]

They are just fucking everywhere at the moment and they drive me absolutely mad. They're also getting really guilt-trippy and almost emotionally manipulative!

You know the ones -

Older couple/couple of friends, discussing their dearly departed's recent beautiful funeral and commenting that they couldn't POSSIBLY afford anything THAT nice!!

Or alternatively saying that X passed away recently and HER POOR FAMILY they had to cough up MANY THOUSANDS for a funeral!!

Translation -

That selfish person had the temerity to die and not leave thousands behind specifically to pay for their funeral. They've put their loved ones in SO MUCH DEBT!! How AWFUL of them!

Cue the ad for pre-paid funeral plans, etc etc.

Just winds me up that they are pushing SO hard to get us to feel so guilty. I have enough guilt in my life, thanks. I don't need any more from bloody adverts!

I don't want a funeral, at all. I would much rather my loved ones spend their money living life, seeing the world, having fun, or putting it towards their futures rather than wasting it on buying me a very expensive box for my remains to live in.

If you want to have one of these plans, or pay thousands for a funeral then that is absolutely your choice. No issue with that. I just don't want it shoved down my throat every time I turn on the TV! Aibu?

I haven't noticed them on every time I turn on the TV. I think it's good that there is raised awareness of funeral planning and death is slowly being destigmatised.
If you don't want a funeral service you can look into funeral without ceremony but in any event I think it's good if your loved ones are aware of your wishes.

Your body still has to be disposed of OP. That costs money.

I think it's selfish to land that cost on someone else when they're grieving, as well as having to find a chunk of change to dispose of you. Death is the one thing in life that is certain. If you can lighten the load on your loved ones then why wouldn't you?

You have said exactly what I say! Don't spend money on a bloody funeral! Buy a plot in a woodland burial ground, ( about 400 quid) , cardboard coffin and take me in the back of the car. Then raise a glass of your favourite drink. End of!

YABU.

My lovely mum died and she had nothing left to leave in terms of inheritance or property or money. Thankfully she did have a small funeral fund through work which paid out just enough to cover a funeral (not the headstone).

If she hadn’t set that up we’d have been completely fucked. Two kids in our early to mid twenties, we didn’t have thousands of pounds! Without that money we’d have had to get a loan or credit card for it which due to our low wages we’d have struggled to pay off, ever.

You may not want a fancy funeral but there are costs associated with sorting out a body anyway, even cheaply. Before we knew this money existed we rang the council for advice on how to bury someone when you have no money and they were dicks and refused to help.

We had nobody else to get money from, and we didn’t know she was going to die.

Anything that gets people thinking of how to support their family once they’re gone so they’re not plunged into debt while grieving is a good thing. If you know your relatives are wealthy enough to afford to pay for a funeral then great, personally if I’d had money I’d have happily spent every last penny burying her and seen it as an honour. But I didn’t. Many people don’t. Funerals can costs literally thousands. More expensive than an affordable wedding in some cases.

Funeral costs can be expensive even for simple funerals not everybody has money put by a burial/cremation still costs money.
I am thinking of getting a funeral plan in place then the people left behind knows whats what saying all that those bloody adverts are irritating

My mil had stopped paying her life cover her funeral did cost us quite a bit

I feel like to start a thread like this you must just not realise there are people for whom even finding £200 would be impossible without a payday loan or credit card. And people who are so in debt they can’t even do that.

I know companies advertise on TV as they make profit from it, not for social good, but I still think it’s a good thing to destigmatise death and discuss funeral planning. And for a lot of people it gives them peace knowing it’s already pre paid for and being able to take that stress away from their family.

It’s on TV as that’s where most people, especially elderly people who may not be on social media as much as younger individuals, will most likely see it.

I think funeral plans are a fantastic idea tbh.

When my mum’s DP died suddenly aged 50, he had no savings or insurance plans whatsoever. She had to somehow find 5k practically over night. Funerals are extortionate.

I am okay with them.

I am in the middle of planning payment for my funeral and DH's.

Neither of us want anything fancy - we just want to disposed of, but neither do we want our families stiffed (pardon the pun!) with a bill.

For some context BTW, my mum’s work funeral plan was £4K. The funeral was £4K. Thank god she’d had the foresight. A 22 year old on NMW whose mum has just died suddenly isn’t always capable of magicking up thousands of pounds.

Admittedly funerals can be cheaper, a couple of grand (I’d have preferred cheap as I didn’t see the point but was railroaded into spending the entire £4K by a more materialistic older brother who I guess was also expressing his grief in wanting to do it ‘right’ for her). I still had to put half the headstone (£500 for half!) on a credit card.

Turn the channel?

Dying is part of life and funerals are bloody expensive!

Its all well and good saying oh I don’t want a funeral but a grieving child, partner is maybe not going to think that way and the body needs to be disposed of somehow and that costs money. I do think it’s irresponsible to not have even a small amount put by and to leave family with many pounds to find tbh

Agreed with Lois.
Card box etc.
But if someone dies with no relatives of relatives that's haven't spoken to them for 20 years , I think i something basic is arranged.
Not sure who or how though .....

I'm buying the plot, a cardboard coffin is about 100 quid and it's just then a question of paying for the grave to be dug. It doesn't have to cost a fortune and it's quite legal to DIY a funeral. Just like the `olden days!'

The local authority will pay if there are no relatives or money in the deceased estate.

A cremation where I live is £1500 that is before you have cars and somebody to conduct the service

I have made no secret of the fact that I want as little as possible (money and 'fuss' wise) when I go. I want my loved one's money to be spent on life, not death.

If the option was avaliable to just bury me in the woods under a nice tree, for free, I would do that. Or direct disposal. I want to donate as much of me is useful and then the rest I just want to be disposed of as close to £0 as possible.

I don't have a lot of money, no assets, and in the unlikely event that I do have anything to leave to my DC's I would be quite cross if they chose to waste it on an expensive funeral when they could use it to do something nice and positive. Although in my case my dc is profoundly disabled so anything I have will probably go towards his care and making his life worth living. So it makes even less sense to spend it on a funeral. I have SO much more to worry about when I'm gone than that.

They've put their loved ones in SO MUCH DEBT!! How AWFUL of them!

Yes it is!
Why should the kids have to find thousands to pay for a parents funeral when they could have saved for it themselves for a few quid a month?

Someone has to pay for disposing the body no matter where it goes and the family will be liable. I wouldnt dream of leaving my funeral costs to my kids, they have their own lives to lead not have to find thousands of pounds to see me off! Its not like its a surprise to anyone that they are going to die at some point, get it sorted before someone else gets lumbered with the costs of it.

Yes thank Christ for them as when mil died, fil didn't and still does not have a pot to piss in, mil had secretly taken one out and that covered it, otherwise we would have bad to find the money.

As I recall fil was paid a bereavement fund from the government, not a single penny of that went on anything for mil either.
The adverts make me angry for another reason, fil sits on his fat fucking arse all day every day watching tv, he is bound to have seen them...but I know he would have no intention at all, whatsoever to think of any one else and think of getting one. Well he can be flushed down toilet for all I care, we will not be spending a penny on him when he goes.

LoislovesStewie Not necessarily true. Perhaps in theory, or in some areas. In my case when I rang to ask, I got (I’m not exaggerating) ‘why can’t you pay? What about your dad? Don’t you have a job?’

I mean... I did have a job, just not thousands of pounds in savings. I hadn’t even mentioned my fucking dad, who could also have been dead for all she knew (and my parents weren’t even together). And it was nice to have it rubbed in that I couldn’t afford it. She upset me so much (this was the day of the death).

So no, it’s not the case that people will be buried by the council.

Not everyone is going to want their body 'donated' so many families are left with the costs of burial/cremation. If there are family the council will not do it for free. Someone will get the bill.

The council really won't just bury you if you have next of kin or family they will be expected to foot a bill

I have made no secret of the fact that I want as little as possible (money and 'fuss' wise) when I go. I want my loved one's money to be spent on life, not death

That's what I want too, but I can't ignore the fact that any funeral still costs SOMETHING and I don't want my DH to be left trying to come up with money overnight when he will (presumably) be grieving. I also don't want him chased by the local authority's debt collectors if they end up having to arrange my funeral.

If it becomes commonplace for people to refuse to plan for this, I guess the government will simply work it into a compulsory death tax and the whole thing will be nationalised or something.

Why should the kids have to find thousands to pay for a parents funeral

But Willow, it is not compulsory to spend 5k (or whatever) on a funeral.

I realise that everyone grieves in different way but if my, very much loved, parents were to go any time soon I wouldn't have a penny to pay for an expensive funeral, and neither would my siblings. So we wouldn't have one. And I wouldn't feel a shred of animosity towards my parents for not having saved several thousand for it.

Although I just want to be disposed of (I don’t like fuss) I know I will have to leave some money behind for that to still happen...I find those ads very cheesy but at least people are beginning to talk about death, and how they want things to go after they die. My Italian in-laws think nothing about asking if it was a good death, and about the finer details of the funeral service. In my British culture my older members of the family don’t talk about it at all.