3 Tips For Pre-Planning A Funeral
As an adult, you have a lot of responsibilities. One of those responsibilities that often gets overlooked is pre-planning your funeral. By pre-planning your funeral and pre-paying for your funeral, you can ensure that when you die, your family doesn't have to scramble to pay for your funeral, or stress about the funeral itself. A pre-arranged funeral is a thoughtful last gift you can give your family and loved ones.
Consider Pre-Paying for the Funeral
It is one thing to plan your funeral, and it is something else entirely to pre-purchase your funeral. Many funeral homes offer packages that allow you to pre-pay for your funeral and disposal method, be it an urn or a casket in advance. Pre-paying for a funeral will allow you to lock in the price of your funeral now, reducing or eliminating funeral costs for your family.
You can also open a funeral account, where you set aside specific funds that can be used to pay for your funeral. Your money may get caught up in probate though, which is why pre-paying is often the best option if you want to lessen the burden on your family.
Decide What Happens to Your Body
Second, you want to decide what happens to your body. Many people choose to honor religious or family traditions when it comes to choosing what to do with one's body. If you want a traditional burial, choose the coffin you want to be buried in and pay for the burial plot. Burial plots are often located on private land, separate from the funeral home, so this may be an additional expense outside of your pre-paid funeral.
If you want to be cremated, you can decide what type of urn you want. You can also decide if you want your ashes to be turned into something else, with things such as cremation art has become a popular way to handle one's ashes.
Or you can go the more traditional route and let your family know where you want your ashes scattered. If you want your ashes scattered somewhere that would require your family to take a trip to fulfill your request, you may want to consider setting aside some money just for that purpose.
Involve Your Family
Pre-planning your funeral does not have to be something that you do on your own. You can involve your friends and family members in helping you decide how you want your funeral to go. Working through this process when you are all alive and together can be a lot less stressful than asking your family to handle this whenever you die.
This way, you can work together to come up with fun ways to celebrate your life, and you can make sure that everyone's viewpoint is taken into consideration. This will also give you an opportunity to explain why you want certain things done in celebration of your life.
As an adult, pre-planning and paying for your funeral is a responsible and kind gift you can give to your family, so that way, when you pass, they can focus on dealing with the emotional side instead of the technical side of your death. In addition to pre-paying for the funeral itself, you may want to set aside funds for your burial plot or money to allow your family to travel and spread your ashes, depending on your specific after-life plans.
Contact a funeral home like Arehart-Echols Funeral Home to learn more.
