DIY Funeral
Joyce_K
Posts: 3 Newbie
Do not know if anyone interested but funerals do not have to cost a fortune.
My husband died this year. He did not want a traditional funeral. We talked about it a few years ago and both agreed we did not want to pay funeral directors masses of money, so this is how we said goodbye to him.
Our children and I purchased a plot at Greenhaven Woodland Burial site in Rugby. The cost of the plot was £750 and the cost to dig grave and do paperwork £250. When the site is full it will be given over to a wild life trust so graves will never be disturbed.
(We were quoted £3500 to have the same sort of thing at a Cemetery in Coventry and only had plot for 75 years.)
We then got in touch with Morris Minor Funerals, really lovely people very helpful and upfront with costings etc.They also said that we could take our dog and they would look after her if we needed her to. We had the car from them (a Morris Minor Estate - classic car adapted to take a coffin. and their full support (as in they would do as much or as little as we required). We also got the coffin from them. They collected my husband from the hospital mortuary and "swaddled" him then they took him over to Greenhaven and met us there.We used our own cars. Their costs were £250 for the car and £300 for the coffin My children and I placed his coffin in the grave (Greenhaven supplied the straps to lower him.) We then spoke about him,played a couple of songs that meant a lot to us,read a poem from my daughter to him, placed flowers on the grave from our garden and said a peaceful goodbye to him, surrounded by trees,fields and wildlife. So you can say goodbye to your loved ones without paying extortionate prices to Funeral Directors. It was a very emotional day but was also so beautiful as only family and a few close friends were involved.
My husband died this year. He did not want a traditional funeral. We talked about it a few years ago and both agreed we did not want to pay funeral directors masses of money, so this is how we said goodbye to him.
Our children and I purchased a plot at Greenhaven Woodland Burial site in Rugby. The cost of the plot was £750 and the cost to dig grave and do paperwork £250. When the site is full it will be given over to a wild life trust so graves will never be disturbed.
(We were quoted £3500 to have the same sort of thing at a Cemetery in Coventry and only had plot for 75 years.)
We then got in touch with Morris Minor Funerals, really lovely people very helpful and upfront with costings etc.They also said that we could take our dog and they would look after her if we needed her to. We had the car from them (a Morris Minor Estate - classic car adapted to take a coffin. and their full support (as in they would do as much or as little as we required). We also got the coffin from them. They collected my husband from the hospital mortuary and "swaddled" him then they took him over to Greenhaven and met us there.We used our own cars. Their costs were £250 for the car and £300 for the coffin My children and I placed his coffin in the grave (Greenhaven supplied the straps to lower him.) We then spoke about him,played a couple of songs that meant a lot to us,read a poem from my daughter to him, placed flowers on the grave from our garden and said a peaceful goodbye to him, surrounded by trees,fields and wildlife. So you can say goodbye to your loved ones without paying extortionate prices to Funeral Directors. It was a very emotional day but was also so beautiful as only family and a few close friends were involved.
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Comments
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Lovely Joyce,thanks for that.
I thought I was doing okay when I paid £2,736 for my mother's funeral a few year's back but your £1,550 is very good value and like the personal touch.
Also,love the old Morris Traveller,great car.0 -
That sounds really nice (well, as nice as a funeral can be)."If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." -- Red Adair0
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I'm either going with a direct cremation or donating my body to science/education. The latter is free but the former is very cheap and as my son is an only child it means he won't have to worry about a service etc. The crematorium just call him to pick up the ashes.0
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phoenix1837 wrote: »I'm either going with a direct cremation or donating my body to science/education. The latter is free.
My Mom has done this. Registered with two Medical Schools.
However, one of the exemptions is that they wont accept thr body if patient died from dementia. Sadly, my Mom was diagnosed a few years ago.0 -
My mother died a few days ago and the options we had were terrible. I live in Harrow and they have no burials plots left in the borough. However , they had negotiated a bit of land for burial in 'Carpenders Park Lawn Cemetery'. We nearly chose this as a burial site until I found out what a 'Lawn Cemetery' actually was. It doesn't allow headstones (like my mother wanted) but only flat plaques to easily allow the lawnmowers to keep the grass short. You are not allowed to put vases or wooden crosses or any items that you'd leave in remembrance of your loved ones. They take them away and dump them in plastic bags with the rest of the mown grass and mud (as it doesn't conform with the lease agreements). Basically , its a piece of lawn with low cost maintenance because Harrow borough has no money because of government subsidy cutbacks. They can't build new cemeteries because they are selling council land for high rise flat building and forcing residents to choose cemetery burial plots in other boroughs. The other neighboring boroughs are therefore taking financial advantage by upping a surcharge on burial plots to 'non-residents'.
To cut a long story short , if I wanted a burial plot with a headstone (what my mother always wanted with angel statues) that was relatively close for our family to visit, we'd have to pay very high costs.
In the end we had to pay £5000 for a double-burial plot , then add funeral costs £3000 , plus service charges, flowers, function venue food/drink , the total cost will be about £10k.0 -
Hi Humbug, I am so sorry to hear of your recent loss - it is so hard having to have to deal with all these things at this time. I think burials can be very expensive and looks like your costs reflect this, but sounds like this is the route you & your family want to go.
Just bear in mind that while the plot may cost 5K and there will be digging of the grave as a cost, the funeral service, flowers, food and drinks, printing etc can cost very much less than you quote.
For comparison I arranged direct cremation (1400), then later church service (300), opening of ashes plot and churchyard PCC fees (300), printing (80), refreshments (300) flowers (6 - just roses to put on the stone at the end ). Have yet to get the prexisting stone amended - that may be another 400-500 including fees etc0
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