Knowing your local funeral homes is important information for you to have because it would allow for you to be able to get the best deal in terms of planning a funeral. With the continuous rise of funeral costs, it would be beneficial for you to know the nearest funeral homes to aid in your funeral planning so that you would be able to save money in doing so. A lot of funeral homes also have different kinds of services offered so that you would be able to get a head start on planning for funerals and even beating inflation with their prepaid funeral plans. There are actually a lot more to your local funeral homes than you know, so getting to know one that you could trust and count on, most especially during unexpected and untimely deaths, should be on your to do list before the time comes that you would be scrambling all over the place looking for them.
How Much do Funerals Really Cost?
To date, the average cost of a funeral in the United Kingdom is roughly around £3,800. If you want to have a burial for your deceased loved one, it would cost you about £4,300. A cremation on the other hand is much cheaper, with an average cost of around £3,300. These prices would only be inclusive of the collection of the body of the deceased and the care or embalming, a basic coffin for the viewing, a hearse, and a very simple service to have a short commemoration of the life of the deceased. All of the fees related to the burial or the cremation and the doctor’s certificates are already included in the fees. If, however, you would want a more elaborate service, you would of course have to pay extra in order to get it. Getting additional third-party operational costs such as flowers, a memorial service venue, catering, funeral notice, and such, you would shell out around £2,000 more. A lot of people cannot afford this so most opt for just a direct funeral or burial which would roughly cost around £1,700 to £2,000. While some people who cannot afford it at all just opt to donate the bodies of their deceased loved ones to science.
Avoid the Higher Costs
If you know and are aware of the local funeral homes near you, then you would not have to spend so much on a meaningful and nice funeral. Funeral homes already have a lot of connections and could give packages that would be able to help you save money. For example, for a direct cremation, you could get it at a much cheaper price of only £975. While a funeral service will all the essentials you would want in a memorial service for your loved one could only cost you £1,575. It is a whole lot cheaper compared to the average funeral costs if you would do it on your own. A more bespoke funeral on the other hand would only cost you £2,695 if you want to go the extra mile in giving your deceased loved one a better memorial service. Not to mention that you would also be able to pay for the funeral packages through a financed funeral scheme. So that even if you do not have the complete amount upfront, you would still be able to give your loved one a great and meaningful funeral without going for loans with high interest rates.
Funeral Homes Offer Prepaid Funerals
Better than a savings account, you could get a prepaid funeral plan which you can pay off every month for an X number of years. It would allow for you to be able to pay for the current funeral prices, without any addition even in the next three or five years while you are still paying it off. If a direct cremation would cost £1,700 nowadays, imagine how much more it would cost you in the next three years down the road with an annual inflation rate of roughly 2%? If you, however, get a prepaid funeral plan now, you would only pay for the £1,700 today and spread it out in let us say 36 months to make it more affordable for you. It would actually be a better and more economical choice than putting the same amount in your savings account which would only let you earn peanuts, not even enough to beat the inflation rate yearly. The great thing about prepaid funeral plans is that you could get it in advance for your loved ones, so that you would be able to take advantage of the cheaper prices today. Not only that, but it is transferable should an untimely and unexpected death occurs. Then, you could just simply get another plan for yourself again, and you would still be able to take advantage of the cheaper prices of today.