Tips for Pre-Planning Your Funeral

Pre-planning your funeral may seem strange, but it is a practice that can help you and your family in the future. People often see pre-planning a funeral as morbid, similar to how many people feel about creating a Will. However, pre-planning helps you secure your wishes while reducing the financial impact of a funeral upon your death. This article will discuss tips to help you pre-plan your funeral.

Why Pre-Plan Your Funeral?

Before we discuss god practices for preplanning, we should first look at why people do it in the first place. When someone hasn’t pre-planned their funeral passes, their loved ones must make the decisions regarding the funeral in their stead. When you pre-plan, you remove the burden of these decisions from your loved ones. Moreover, you can help ensure that your wishes are properly met. Lastly, pre-planning allows you to pay for the funeral ahead of time. This helps reduce or remove the financial burden of the funeral on your family. Ultimately, it can be difficult for your family to deal with these decisions and their financial impact while they are dealing with grief. Pre-planning helps remove these responsibilities from them so that they can begin to work through their grief.

Figuring Out What to do With Your Remains

It may feel morbid to think about how you want your remains to be treated. There are a number of decisions and costs that go into each option. The most common choices for New Yorkers are burial and cremation.

Burials

Burial in a cemetery is the most popular choice for remains. Burials include choosing a casket and cemetery for burial. Creating a monument stone is often a part of choosing the burial process. Some people choose to be buried in a mausoleum. You can choose to have a private mausoleum or be laid in a public one.

Cremation

Cremation is the process of reducing the body to ash. Some people choose to store the ashes in an urn, while others wish for the ashes to be scattered. Additionally, some people prefer for their remains to be stored in a columbarium. This is a mausoleum, or part of one, where niches store burial urns. These urns are usually sealed behind memorial placards.

Pre-Paying for Memorial Arrangements

When you decide how you want your remains to be treated, it is important to also pre-pay for these choices. As such, many people purchase their burial plots ahead of time. This can be important if you and your spouse want to be buried together, for instance. Additionally, prices can rise over time. Pre-paying allows you to lock in your prices so that your family doesn’t have to pay out when you pass away.

Don’t Make Your Choices Solely on Price

While price can certainly be an important factor in your plans, it is also important to choose what feels right to you. Because you can pre-pay for your funeral over time, costs can also be less cumbersome.

Think About Your Loved Ones Too

While your wishes are a big part of pre-planning, you may want to consider the wishes of your family too. For instance, you may want to consider a cemetery close to where your children or other family members live. If you live far from the rest of the family, it may be a good idea to make your resting place accessible to them. If your family is of a different faith than you, you may still want to include rites that more closely align with their needs, in addition to your own. While your wishes are valid and important, it can still be nice to help your family deal with their grief by supporting their wishes, to an extent that you feel comfortable with. 

Discuss Your Plans with Your Loved Ones

While it is good to pre-plan your funeral, it is important to discuss these plans with your family. It is important to do this so that they know to follow your plan. Do not leave your wishes in the Will. The Will is usually looked at after the deceased is laid to rest. 

For almost 50 years, Matthew Funeral Home has been serving the Staten Island community. We can help with almost every aspect of your loved one’s memorial service. Our family is here to serve yours, every step of the way.