Cremation is the cheapest, simplest and most efficient way to go. Can be as little as $500.
I am connected to the funeral & cemetery industry. I feel compelled to post
my warning against the ultra-low cost cremation pricing that one might see on billboards and direct mailings. In my opinion, ultra-low cost is $795-995 and under. Here are the 3 reasons why:
1) I've looked at the final pricing at dozens of these places and, in my experience,
always found that they had
mandatory charges that were added on to the low advertised price. They are hoping they will be your first call and that by the time you figure out it won't be the final price, then they have your loved one in their facility and what are you gonna do? This can often be seen in their Google Reviews, but you'll probably have to dig through them because they often buy 5-star reviews to cover up the 1-stars. It's possible that some ultra-low cost cremations are actually done at the low advertised price ... but I've never seen it.
2) Ultra-low cost cremation providers are often run through a central office that then contracts with some local funeral providers. This means that there are multiple chains of communication and you often don't know where you loved one will be cremated. It also means that you have no option to visit the cremation facility and the cremation business often doesn't own the crematory. This means that the responsibility for getting your loved one's cremation remains back to you and actually done is falling on several different entities ... but no one seems to have ultimate responsibility. Compare this to a local funeral home that owns it own crematory -- they know exactly what is going on and are heavily invested in making sure there are no mix-ups or mistakes. If word got out in their community that things weren't done properly, there is a huge financial cost for them.
3) Scams and fraud happen. Sometimes it happens at local funeral homes & crematories. But most often it happens at high-volume crematories and low-end funeral homes. I've personally never seen a large-scale fraud case at a local funeral home that has high community involvement. And when I say scam and fraud, I'm taking about:
- not getting your loved one's ashes back (you get something that looks like ashes or someone else's ashes)
- your loved one being thrown in a ditch to rot (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tri-State_Crematory_scandal- your loved one's organs are being sold without your knowledge (
https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/04/us/colorado-funeral-home-body-parts/index.html- and you cannot assume that a "green burial" place will be immune to this (Like almost 200 bodies found in Colorado a few months ago:
https://www.npr.org/2023/10/19/1207147316/colorado-funeral-home-investigation)
And if you live in
Colorado, you should definitely understand that there is
no licensing or minimum education requirements for funeral homes or funeral directors. Literally,
anyone call themselves a funeral home and then rent a storage unit with a sink and transport a body there and do embalming. I understand that some professions may be over-regulated, but this seems ridiculous and dangerous to me.
Given scams and fraud have been perpetrated by locally owned funeral homes and fly-by-night low-cost cremation providers, ,the only defense you have is to do as much research as possible, work with a funeral home, crematory, and cemetery that have a long-term reputation in the community, and don't blink when you ask questions and want to see their facilities.
