Community Chat

[Yardlie]

This isn't the most pleasant subject in the world, but I have seen it discussed somewhat on the boards here before. We recently had a funeral in the family...the cost of which was through the moon compared to the last time we had a family funeral.

We learned that we could purchase the casket online, and we saved half price, even with the shipping! I know Wal-Mart and some other places are selling them, but there are lots of other places. We used casketxpress. I think there is an expresscaskets, too, and many others. Most of them ship free to the nearest large city, so if you live in a large city...no shipping! They will get it to you overnight by plane if you live in a large city. Now, I don't live in a large city anymore, so we had to pay $200 freight, but even with that, the cost was $730 less than the funeral homes cheapest casket! And, this was not the cheap casket the funeral home was trying to push off on us. This was a beautiful, deluxe casket. It even had the ultra-deluxe satin lining and the deluxe hardware on the outside of the casket. There are many choices on these sites.

My uncle had left a funeral trust, which you would have thought would be enough, but not in today's economy. Also, more and more people are not doing the viewing at the funeral home. They just view in the church, so the funeral homes are not making the money they used to. My uncle also bought his plot and left instructions that he did not want cremation, so we wanted to honor that.

The only thing that I can say was negative about ordering the casket online, was that they ask you what day the funeral is and want to get the casket there the day before the funeral. Don't allow that. Fib if you have to about the day of the funeral, because we sweated that out...and it did arrive late in the day because the funeral directors were out of the office when they tried to deliver it. Also, what if there is a big snow storm or other bad weather...or, what if the casket gets lost in shipping?

Good grief, with embalming not required in most states if the funeral is to be held quickly, caskets purchased on line, and viewing directly at the church, pretty soon all people will need is a grave digger...not to make light of funerals, but it is the truth. Now, we had to embalm because of transportation, so we had to incur embalming and transportation charges...and obviously, funeral homes are a great comfort to you at such a time, but I think this is an industry that is changing greatly and taking a big financial hit right now.