How To Choose A Funeral Home

If someone you truly love and value has died, you must look for the best funeral home quickly. This will be difficult, of course, as you are grieving. To ensure that you succeed in funeral planning despite your current difficult circumstances, don't do it alone. Involve friends and family members as much as possible. Moreover, try to calm down and relax so as to make good decisions. When it comes to selecting one of the top funeral homes, you should aim to compare both services and prices. This is how you will learn whether the fees you are being charged are reasonable or excessive. Apart from this, take the following steps. 

Determine the amount of money you want to spend

To reach this decision, discuss the matter with your friends and family. The figure you settle on should be an amount you can spend without difficulty. Coming up with an affordable budget prior to selecting the right place to preserve the late person's body is advisable. This way, you can avoid accepting any price you are offered and then borrowing money to meet the cost. One thing that can help you stretch your budget is setting up an online donations platform. Online donations for funerals are becoming more common, and a page can be set up in a matter of minutes.

Learn and exercise your funeral rights

As a funeral consumer, you have rights that can protect you when looking for a reliable funeral home. You should be able to:

  • Receive price details on the phone
  • Get a printed, itemized price list when you visit a home
  • Decide not to embalm the body
  • Purchase just what you require
  • Cremate the body inside any container but a casket
  • Bring your urn to avoid buying a costlier funeral home's casket.
  • Get a written statement after making a decision and before you pay for anything.

Consider the best location

It is advisable to select a funeral home that is near the cemetery, your place of worship, or home if this will be a gathering space for friends and family. This way, you can ensure that everyone will conveniently make it there. If you plan to have a different gathering place, proximity should not be a serious factor to consider. Besides, most homes can travel 20 to 30 miles to pick up the late without charging you an additional fee.

Determine what to do with the body

Will you donate the body to an educational facility for research? If you do so, you are likely to incur nothing. If the deceased wanted you to do this with their body, then it will be fine. Other options that might fall within your budget are either direct cremation or direct burial without embalming. In addition, you can opt for a natural burial where an eco-friendly box rather than an expensive casket is chosen. If there is enough money to spend, you can arrange for everything: embalming, visitation, and a sophisticated funeral service.

Always compare different price lists

A Funeral Consumers Alliance in your locality can provide the current price survey. Alternatively, check the internet for funeral home listings. Then select a number of funeral homes and get their price lists. Compare their prices to those quoted in the price survey or by listed funeral homes. Opt for the homes that could meet your budget and provide excellent services. If these are not available in your home area, look further away. Alternatively, do away with expensive procedures like embalming and visitation.

Research your favorite homes further

After comparing prices and services and picking a few homes, investigate them further. Visit their websites and read them, look for former customers' reviews online, and select your most promising options.

Visit the selected homes

To make your final decision, make sure you visit the last two or three funeral homes you found capable. Go there with friends and family and feel free to ask lots of sensible questions. Eventually, you should be able to pick the best funeral home and take your beloved person's body there.

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