General Chat

We've decided: "Er Indoors" body donated to Sci but if not then same as me:
Cardboard coffin, body collected by Crem and cremated. No service of any sort, no flowers, no wake et al. Why waste money on the dead?

Just read this. Maggie, if you want to donate your body to medical science the hospital will send you a form to complete, I believe.

Also, I am told by a reliable source, not to die at weekend because no one will be there to receive/collect your body. :-D

This was what I was told a couple of years ago.

Yea dead boring ads ;-)

Well I live in Kent too and we used a local family run business

All in including the flowers I bought from a local florist ,and the after service reception at a large motel chain which was local to the crematorium for 35 people was £3500 and some change

This did included all the fees and the fee for the parish catholic priest to take the service

The only extra had been the cost of the urn for hubbies ashes which I have at home .
When I pop my clogs daughter has been instructed to have us both together when she decides where we go

I'm sure it does. Costs in parts of London, especially, are much higher.

One of ours was in Lancashire (incidentally the more expensive one) and the other in Cambridgeshire.

Maybe there is a price difference in different parts of the country..?

I can assure you I paid a lot more, earlier this year ......cremation and no cars other than hearse.

Flowers and refreshments extra.

Cost of a nice dignified funeral with cremation is around £3,000 including minister, flowers, car and simple catering.

We were sadly involved with two within the past 18 months, one was just over that figure, the other just under. In fact the cheaper one by about £500 was with a small family run undertaker, and was a nicer experience.

The family of the bereaved is not responsible for travel and accommodation for guests, unless of course the cost is not an issue to them, in which case they would not be in the sort of position being shown by these adverts in the first place.

There is nothing new about these 'Whole Life' policies currently being touted, but they are not necessarily the best option financially, as others have suggested.

Our local market has a stall selling wicker coffins for £350.0, to be taken away and stored at home. As I love all kinds of basketry, I am very tempted to get one and keep it in the loft. I could even customise it to my own taste lol

Lizx

Cynthia: 'Due to circumstances, OH watches daytime television quite a lot. All we get, is a constant stream of adverts featuring funeral plans, sick children, starving children and cruelty to animals. Most of these request that we donate to each and every worthy cause - it must be thought that those who watch television during the day have limitless funds!'

Two reasons.

1 - advertising is cheap during the day so charities get better value then

2 - they flog this stuff at women and it is mostly women watching during the day - women worry about funerals and sick children and cruelty to animals and are more easily guilted or manipulated into giving up their money

I want the football spectators and top gear gans to have to see the sick children and sad animals and be urged to dig into their pockets for a change. Which audience is bigger and who has more money anyway?

I'd love him!

Eldrick,
So you don't want Papa Lazarou?

I'm registered with the nearest teaching hospital to have my body 'taken away'. I have made provision in my will for cremation if this is not possible (they don't take you under certain causes of death).

I've told my sister that I want direct disposal - cremation without a service, which should keep costs down. It's straightforward and no fuss, which is the way I like it.

Been there, Maggie - got to love the Vikings! Will be back later this year as well to photograph the aurora. I was thinking more of a rowing boat on the duck pond.

Got me thinking - could quite fancy a jazz funeral then a wake back at the pub with sausages and the telly showing repeats of League of Gentleman.(some people will have to goggle that!) I will come up with some bizarre idea, I'm sure. As long as their is no white collared black robed people chanting patronising clichés I really couldn't care less :D

I've no doubt you could visit an undertaker and discuss prices and pay now.

You'd have to ensure your next of kin was aware of the arrangement.

Eldrick, a bit ostentatious, but maybe you could ask these guys :-D
There's drinking and activities in the halls all night - so a suitable 'wake' :-D :-D

Scroll down for the best (night time) pictures: (by night time, I mean from 3pm onwards - it gets dark early there in January)

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/gallery/2017/jan/31/up-helly-aa-festival-in-shetland-in-pictures

I think the most basic church service would be the church and the officiating minister. We were asked if we wanted an organist (yes), choir (no), and which hymns/psalms.

Because we are being cremated we chose the simplest coffins, but we could have had more expensive ones if we'd wanted.

We spread the payments over 10 months at no extra charge, and then we stopped worrying about who was going to pay for the funerals.

Joan, I hope so! The idea is that pre-paid funeral plans are actually insurance policies. The premium is calculated on what you want at your funeral, so the initial cost varies.

There are several places that do them, including the Coop Funeral care, but ours are through AgeUK, and we arranged them with the local funeral director (who said he enjoyed doing them because we weren't grieving relatives) and were told that if we no longer lived here the plan could be transferred to another company.

It was recommended by our solicitor when we were drawing up our wills.

Even if the children have to add to it, the main costs should be covered.

I think that's a myth - a quick bit of research at companies house shows no relationship with any US companies.

I wonder what the cost of a Viking funeral would be? I might ask for a quote.

OH and I both have pre-paid funeral plans. They were taken out several years ago and cover a basic church service, undertaker's fees for coffin, hearse and one car. In other words, the essentials. Total cost £1600.00 each, which is dirt cheap compared with some of today's prices.

If the children want a party, that's up to them!