Even death isn't recession proof: Funeral homes are cutting costs

[steven johnson]

I heard people are economizing on the two certainties in life: death and taxes. More people this year are doing their own taxes and more people are being cremated.

Wednesday, Apr. 1, 2009 - 12:37 pm
WASHINGTON -- Funeral directors are turning down their thermostats, doing their own laundry and not buying new hearses, according to a new National Funeral Directors Association survey.

The reason: Funeral home revenues are weakening as more consumers opt for cremations, cheaper caskets, shorter viewing periods and cheaper wakes. Also suffering are trusts and stock funds in which funeral homes invest money from clients who prepay for their funeral arrangements.

Consumers are spending less on funerals, too, mainly by switching from caskets to cremations.

Cremations rose 46 percent nationwide from 1997 to 2007, according to association figures. The switch to cremation, which represents from 24 percent to 35 percent of all funerals, has undercut the market in metal caskets. Funeral homes sell them for an average of around $2,250, according to the directors association.

http://www.sacbee.com/838/story/1747222.html

[rcrush]

1. Funeral Homes love to gouge people.

If you dont have insurance. They end up charging you over $10,000 for a 'modest' funeral. A $2200 casket is a cheap one from the brochures I had to look at when my mom died.

[PassingFair]

2. Disgusting obsession with dead bodies, anyway.

I come from a line of "closed casket" Episcopalians...
so my views are tainted, but I don't WANT to see
a dead body, not even a family member's...

I can understand the memorial service, but I
REALLY prefer the Jewish "shiva" thing.

No one should be forced to throw an expensive
party or throw money into a hole in the ground
when someone dies.