In some states, death-related expenses pose a greater financial burden due to the high cost of funerals and end-of-life medical care.
To determine which states are the most expensive to die in, Forbes Advisor analyzed funeral costs and end-of-life medical expenses to calculate the total cost of dying in all 50 states.
My daughter's got my wishes for my after existing experience. Donate my old wrinkled body to a medical school with one proviso: Only females are allowed slice & dice me since I've had a lot of practice in my life.
ReplyDeleteOne wonders just how Forbes gets their numbers. NH rates almost the most expensive jet for both of my parents' cremation and burial was less than 10K. Maybe they total up what Medicare pays for the last year of care also?
ReplyDeleteIs that one burial and one cremation or cremation and interment of the ashes for both? Because I just found $1500 cremation in NH (and even less if pre-paid). I interred my dad's ashes at his mother's feet in CT 4 years ago and it cost a few hundred to the cemetery, mostly for county record-keeping fees. Definitely less expensive ways to have it end other than traditional funeral costs.
DeleteIn Oklahoma, as long as you are buried within 24 hours of dying, you can have it done privately. My plans are to have neighbor with backhoe dig a hole on my property and be done with it and cheat the local Democrat donating funeral home owner out of $9000. The downside of that is my kin will have to allow anyone else who wants to be buried by me to be obliged.
ReplyDeleteThe cost of dying is absurd and the way the funerals and caskets are sold to the bereaved should be illegal..
ReplyDeleteI have a prepaid with the funeral home, nothing fancy, just a simple cremation and a box to put whatever ashes they scoop up. Whatever my son does with them is fine with me but my choice is to be let loose off the back of his bike up in the Smoky Mountains.
JD
I spread my brother's ashes up on Roan Mountain overlooking the Rhododendrons and Fraser Firs.
DeleteWe mixed my uncle in the concrete when we poured a patio in the back yard....
DeleteWhen my Dad passed away in 2018 the cost of cremation was $2,100 and when my Mom passed away this last July the cost had risen to $2,600. But they are together and in peace. I miss them.
ReplyDeleteBack in 2011 I had a daughter pass away, "what do you want us to do with the remains" is one of those questions I was not experienced in dealing with.
ReplyDeleteFor $500 (paid in advance) a mortuary in Tacoma WA did go pick up the body, cremate it, do the paperwork and let me know I could come pick up a cardboard box with her remains. $500 paid in advance.
A few years later her mother died (not my wife anymore at that point) and the kids went to the same place to have her body taken care of.
There is a place here that does cremation and hands you a box of ashes for $795. I know 2 people who were cremated that way. No funeral. No obit. Nothing. Just gone. The funeral business has priced themselves right out of the market. On the other end of the spectrum, go google "extreme embalming" and click "images. I apologize in advance. You'll need eye bleach after this one.
ReplyDeleteA direct cremation in NH can be had for $1500. No frills, etc. Decide that good money isn't going to be thrown after bad chasing a few extra days of life, and the overall bill plummets no matter where you live. Your body is designed to begin decomposing the minute the life force energy has left it. No point in paying thousands of dollars to stop that process. When you are done, you are done. No need to leave behind huge debts or costs for your loved ones.
ReplyDeleteIn Canada, everybody is entitled to a $2,500 death benefit. This money tends to go directly to whatever funeral home is dealing with the death, and they pass on what if anything is left.
ReplyDeleteIn the case of my family, with one notable exception people are cremated. I understand the cost is up to about $1,000 to do that here now. We've bought one damn urn and it's been reused a few times. The funeral homes can all cram their $1,500 fancy urns right up their vulture assholes. The notable exception to cremation was my grandfather on my father's side who received a $20,000 funeral because my rich uncle just had to.
Fun fact: when someone is cremated, their body first gets literally pulverized so all the bones are broken up into smaller pieces, which apparently makes it easier to burn. This is according to a rather disturbed lady I used to know who worked at a funeral home.
Sorry, there's too many crematoriums that allow you to witness the cremation for your fun fact to be true. The bones are pulverized AFTER the cremation.
DeleteWhen my aunt passed away, her body was removed from the church immediately after the viewing and was cremated right away with my uncle witnessing it. If they had abused the body in any way, the whole world would have heard about it.
My dad had a $1,500 prepaid funeral insurance policy. My family went to the funeral home to make arrangements and all was covered except the urn for the ashes. After looking through the urn catalog at the funeral home and seeing the prices I went to the pet crematorium to get the urn. The sales lady asked what kind of dog and I told her a Great Dane. My Dad was a bookkeeper and I know he was proud of me that day.
DeleteWe just use the back hoe.....
ReplyDeleteWe have a family cemetery which is where everyone ends up. My old man was the last to go in 2019, and it came in at around $10k, casket and all. This is in TN.
ReplyDeleteI was all for dumping my ashes in the ocean until I found the grave markers for my great & great-great grandparents..
ReplyDeleteSeeing the stones with the names & dates carved into them was a personally moving moment for me.
Like a big dumbass, I dropped my dad's urn on the rug right there in front off the couch. I got really upset and depressed and just sat there for several hours. Then things got interesting. That rug looks like a giant ouija board. Here comes the old Roomba Vacuum making it's daily rounds. It starts on the rug going here, there, and all around sweeping the yes, the no, and all the numbers.
ReplyDeleteThen it stopped on the rug. A lot of clicking and revving commenced, then it stopped and a puff of smoke wafted up from the machine ..... and it spoke while at the same time moving across the bottom 2 words that said, "Good Bye" and at the same time saying said words in a voice that was unmistakably my Dad's.
Then it/Dad rushed off to the charging station muttering about being low on the battery charge and now having to do chores in the afterlife.
I turned off the end table lamp and went to bed... chuckling.