The Cost of Funerals

karren

Thank you everyone for this, I work in palliative care and have met many patients who afraid of dying because of the horrendous bills for funeral

tessasmum

My husband died in July and I have recently paid the undertaker's bill. We had a relatively simple affair, that wasn't as expensive as we had thought it would be. We didn't set out to cut the costs but several things we did did make it less expensive.

My daughters and I wanted to be at the church to welcome people who were travelling to the funeral, so we only had the hearse, not a limo as well, and we went to the crematorium in my sister's people carrier.

We didn't have any flowers as my OH firmly believed that flowers should not be cut but were to be enjoyed in the garden. We put his beekeeper's veil on his coffin instead.

He was and his son is a carpenter and joiner, so his son made his coffin - because he wanted a proper old fashioned solid wood coffin, and it was superb. I only paid for the wood.

For the wake afterwards, we went to a local hotel, and just had tea and cakes - this was a more reasonable option than a full buffet, and we were catering for 120. It still cost me a lot, but a lot less than the full sandwiches and sausage rolls would have been.

Because we are members of our church, we had no church fees or clergy fees to pay.

My OH was a thrifty sort and would have been horrified to learn that the crematorium fee was over £700 - we laughed and said that he would have said, "Blimey - chuck me on the bonfire!" but of course we had to do that the right way.

Think carefully about what you want, and don't be pushed into having things you don't want, or things that you know your deceased family member wouldn't have wanted.

A good undertaker is worth his/her weight in gold, and we had a magnificent, old-fashioned family firm, and we felt so confident in them that the whole thing was much easier than I thought it would be.

Sorry to have gone on, but if this helps someone, I will be pleased to have shared our experience.

Helen224488

Just arranged mums funeral at Coop for just under 4k. Mum always said jokingly put me in a cardboard box don't pay a lot. We chose a mahogany type coffin. I was shocked at the price of the cardboard coffin £440 WOW.