How To Plan And Pay For Your Funeral Ahead Of Time When You Have Limited Funds

Your funeral service is often the last event that will be held in your honor and memory here on earth. You might have thoughts about what type of arrangements you want to make with your funeral director, but are worried whether you and your family can afford them. If you pre-plan your funeral, you can not only control what happens during the wake and funeral services, but you can also control a lot of the costs associated with your burial. Here is how you can pre-plan and pay for your funeral ahead of time if you have a limited budget.

Make an Appointment

The first step is making an appointment with a funeral home of your choice so you can come in and talk about your thoughts. The funeral home will assist you in creating a workable plan to ensure your final services will meet your requirements. The plan, along with most of the costs associated with implementing your plan, is written down in contract form. As long as you meet your payment arrangements, the funeral home commits to ensuring your final wishes are followed as agreed.

Get a Price List

The Federal Trade Communication requires that funeral homes present you with a price list on most of the services they offer from renting space in the funeral for your wake to the cost of using a hearse. You can pick and choose the services you want using this price list. This allows you to choose the things you can afford to make your final services special. The services and products you want to use are written into your prearrangement agreement.

Prearrangement Agreement

The prearrangement agreement will list the prices and final costs of services and products in today's dollars. If you pay the cost today, the money in deposited into a interest-bearing trust account to be used exclusively for your final services, and no more funds are needed once you pass away. You can usually make arrangements to pay ahead of time in installments if you need help coming up with the money.

Funeral Insurance Plan

Another option available to you is purchasing a funeral insurance plan. These plans allow for low monthly payments to be made that will cover the cost of your funeral.

Prearranging and paying for your funeral can give you peace of mind about what will happen at your final services and what type of costs, if any, will be passed on to your family and loved ones.