Funeral Planning

We met with the funeral home today, Labs Funeral Home.

The folks who are running the funeral home go to our church and know mom and dad well. This was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do only hours after watching my mother die. I am glad we were there for Dad. It has to be hard for him to do this after loosing his wife and best friend of 45 years. He just seemed lost as we all were.

I came home and asked Beth if thought her brother could step up when the time comes for her to bury her mother as I know she will not be able to do it.

This experience tells me a couple of things. Plan your funeral out from beginning to end what casket, what vault, service, everything. Don’t necessarily pre-pay just pre-plan. As some small funeral homes like this one simply go out of business before you die and you and your family are out the money paid for a service that cannot be done. So set up a funeral trust with your bank and/or get at the very least 10 to 15 thousand dollars of life insurance to pay for your final disposition.

Other than buying a new car or home paying for a funeral will be one of the most expensive things we’ll ever have to buy in our life times. And for the most part those of us that have to go through with it will be numb and unable to make cost effective decisions. We were asked over and over again what Mom would have wanted. We had some idea and we had each other to bounce our thoughts off of otherwise we would have been lost. I don’t want anyone to have to go through that for me. So sometime this year I will be pre-planning and setting up a trust to pay for it.