Tag Archives: burial casket

Environmentally Friendly Caskets, Urns and Burials

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Buy urns and caskets from a progressive funeral provider based in Los Angeles, Undertaking LA. They provide funeral services in Los Angeles, California and they ship nationwide.

willow coffin

Willow burial casket

They offer environmentally friendly willow, bamboo and sea grass caskets. You can certainly find cheaper caskets is you wish, but these are much cheaper ($1,400) than most that funeral homes try to pressure relatives into buying.

They also offer Himalayan rock salt urns for cremation remains. The urn can be kept, it also can be placed in a lake or other body of water and will dissolve (in about 4 hours). The urns are $200 to $320.

Caitlin Doughty, the owner of Undertaking LA, hosts the Ask a Mortician web series.

Related: The $500 Funeral – USA Funeral Cost Study – Make Your Own Coffin

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People in the Funeral Business Are Trained to Take Advantage of Your Emotions

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[the video has been removed from the internet]

In this video a former family counselor at a funeral home explains his experience being trained to take advantage of vulnerable survivors when planning funerals. He was paid 30% commission on the total cost of a funeral.

Related: Shopping for Funeral Services – Funeral Director Post on the Bad Practices in the Funeral Industry – discussion of video on Reddit – Final Rights: Reclaiming the American Way of Death

Las Vegas Entrepreneur Takes on Overpriced Burial Caskets

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Rest in Peace for Less With Caskets Made in China

in 1972, the Federal Trade Commission began a decade-long investigation into the industry’s anticompetitive practices. In 1984 the FTC passed the Funeral Rule, which ended prepackaging and forced funeral homes to provide price sheets and offer services and products a la carte.

The law also requires funeral homes to let consumers bring their own casket at no charge. Malamas was far from the first to spot an opportunity. Online retailers began appearing in the late 1990s, and Costco jumped into the game in 2004, to much media coverage….
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In 1960 fewer than 4 percent of dead Americans were cremated, according to the Cremation Association of North America. In 2012 the figure was 43 percent and is expected to continue rising. Cremations cost less than a third of traditional funerals.

Consumers deserve better than the exploitation of their emotions by those seeking to charge outrageous amounts for funeral services. We need entrepreneurs like Jim Malamas, ACE Caskets, and large companies like Costco that are focused on customer value instead of those trying to line their pockets when people are emotionally vulnerable.

Cremations are increasing for several reasons but the high cost of burial is likely a very significant factor.

The large companies are needed to fight the law suits brought by those taking advantage of consumers today and to fight through the corruption of the current system. The corruption of the current political system is used by those taking advantage of consumers to give politicians cash so they will introduce anti-competitive practices into state regulation and laws. These are overturned with enough cash to pay lawyers to fight the corruption but it costs money so we need large companies that can afford to fight it to be involved.

Related: Shopping for Funeral Services (FTC help for consumers) – Statistics on cremation – Funeral Director Comments on the Bad Practices in the Funeral Industry – Final Rights: Reclaiming the American Way of Death

Make Your Own Coffin

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The cost of coffins is often too expensive for those who must pay for the expenses of a funeral. And those fancy coffins are often be pushed on grieving relatives as an indication of how much the survivors care – which I hate. The amount you spend on a coffin says nothing about your love for the deceased. If you have lots of money to spare and you want to spend a great deal of money on a coffin, fine. My father’s coffin was hand made by a friend which was incredibly great – much more appropriate than a fancy coffin, in my opinion, and my father’s.

Here is an article on a Coffin-Making class from Make (a great magazine for those that like to make things themselves).

Forty-five year-old Randy Schnobrich, a professional woodworker in Grand Marais, told me that he’s noticed people are paying more attention to green burial options in recent years
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Schnobrich’s course costs $700 ($470 materials + $225 tuition) and participants spend three days constructing a coffin out of inch-thick cabinet grade pine. The caskets are made mainly with hand tools (planes and saws).

“You could obviously just use machinery and blast right through [the project] but that’s kind of not the essence of the school,”
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Although the course fee includes all materials, one woman who took the course provided her own lumber. Planks from a pecan tree milled on her parents property were used.

Making your own coffin isn’t going to appeal to everyone. But many would value such a connection to the cycle of life. This option is not only are personal and environmentally friendly but save you money that can be used to enjoy life instead of just burying it in the ground.

Related: Casketplans.com coffin-making plans for between $40 and $45, as well as kits that range from $700 to $1,700 – Cost of Dying Rises Above £7,000 in the UK – Affordable Funeral Services

Affordable Funeral Services

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I am frustrated with how some people take advantage of others who are facing a difficult time in their lives when coping with the deal of a loved one. People have enough to deal with when a loved one dies they should have honest and well meaning advice to help guide them. This site aims to do that as part on my new site on money matters in general.

I actually remember hearing about the pressure tactics used by some to get people to pay way more for a coffin than they would chose to given all their other priorities. The prices are often incredibly high and the tactics used to pressure people into paying more by making it seem like avoiding wasting money on a funeral casket is somehow a sign of not enough love for the deceased I find disheartening. For my father’s funeral our friend made my father’s casket himself and some of those he worked with dug his grave. How much more loving a gesture can there be? That is far more special I think than spending huge amounts of money.

I can’t remember exactly how it happened. I can’t remember if he said he wanted a simple pine box coffin first, I think he did. It is the type of thing he definitely would have wanted – a simple coffin. He wouldn’t want to waste money on a fancy casket. He spent money much more sensibly in my opinion, on things like travel, saving for retirement and paying for his kids education. What is right for each person is up to them and those that love them, but equating the fanciness of the casket with how much the person is loved and respected is wrong.

A funeral is a difficult time. And a meaningful time. And a time when people are venerable. I hope this site can help people find honorable solutions that are also affordable and fitting for their needs.