Hey, while I'm angry, the bill from the funeral home came in, let's look at that too!

Normally people keep intimate financial information secret for many reasons, some good some not. This is a done deal, it's one-time, nobody in my family follows me on Twitter, and I want to prepare you folks for what you could be looking at. So. TRANSPARENCY. Let me show you it.

Buckle up, pilgrims, because this is a bumpy ride. Hang onto your wallets.

"Basic Services" - ~$3K.

This is eight and a half hours of my time and I'm a patent lawyer. Now, admittedly, I don't have to deal with a lot of corpses. But still. Nice work if you can get it, hourly-wise given how simple this deal was.

Crematory Charge (under "Embalming," which should probably be called "Remains Processing" or something, since not everybody gets embalmed) ~$800. What kind of gas does that thing run on?

Facilities and Staff (two people, two hours each) for service ~$600. So a hundred and fifty an hour for the room, seventy five an hour for the staff. Nice work if you can get it, part II.

Use of Service Vehicle to take small box and two flower arrangements to cemetery three miles away - $175

you know what, sure, why not

Transfer of deceased from hospital forty miles away to funeral home ~$600.

you know what, sure, why not that too, I mean, gas is expensive these days

*urk*

Cremation container - literally a plastic lined cardboard box, NOT optional for cremation ~$225

I gotta buy me a cardboard box factory

Combination urn and vault, ~$500, otherwise you can use your own urn or one of theirs but you have to use a separate vault, $300 minimum, and remember, this is like a cubic foot of space

it sure was pretty, I'll give them that

Memorial folders ~$125, holy cut and paste Batman, this is some kind of sweet racket, I'm beginning to think

These were like color inkjet prints with some text and some clipart, we didn't even use actual photos because Mom hated photos

Third Party Billing:
Open (basically a post-hole-sized) Grave ~$300
Death Certificates - okay this is not on them, they're stupid $ ~$250
ME Permit - ditto ~$80
Minister (who we hired to make my grandma happy and was super nice) ~$200
Obits ~$250 YOU TREE-MURDERING EXTORTIONISTS

Sales Tax - quite reasonable at a mere ~$60

So basically this little affair cost just over seven grand.

You heard me.

Cremation. Very small service. Consolidated EVERYTHING. (Already had a marker, parents bought it and the plot years ago.) SEVEN. GRAND.

Now to his great credit the funeral director was very nice, very patient, quite available for calls and texts, and got the whole thing done in a day and a half. Absolutely ZERO upselling. (He probably took one look at me and my sisters and his survival instinct told him "DON'T.")

But SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS in this Year of our Virus 2020, for an hour long service attended by like a dozen blood relatives. (MASKS WERE MANDATORY AND WE HAD 100% COMPLIANCE, AND NO HANDSHAKES OR HUGS, I HASTEN TO ADD.)

Now, if you're super poor, there are resources to help you. They suck, but they exist. But if you're even within hailing distance of lower-middle-class or up, and you have to deal with the death of a loved one, you're looking at this kind of money to deal with it.

I mean, you could always just refuse to pick them up from the morgue and the county will send you a bill for the Potter's Ground or something, but I'm a cold-hearted bastard and even *I* could not do that to my parents or one of my sisters.

So you have to deal with this, just like you have to deal with a health care power of attorney and a living will and a real will and such. You can't let your loved ones skate on this. It hurts. It's scary. It's AWFUL.

But you know what's worse?

NOT doing it and sitting across from a funeral director who ISN'T super nice and runs up a bill for ten, fifteen, twenty grand while you're so sad and brokenhearted and dazed you don't even realize what you're signing and all you can think about is what a horrible child you were.

I was the hardcase obnoxious lawyer child who sat down with my mother and MADE her tell me what she wanted. If that funeral director - who again was super nice - *had* tried to guilt me into fancying it up I would have LAUGHED at him and told him...

..."My mother TOLD me what she wanted and it did NOT include a coffin shaped like the Palace of Versailles, put that catalog away or I'll shove it into one of your bodily orifices."

If you want to comparison shop for last arrangements, I encourage you to do so, but you have to do it IN ADVANCE. I guarantee that no matter how sharp a negotiator you are - and I've negotiated tens of MILLIONS of dollars worth of contracts - you will NOT be up to it then.

Otherwise, have a plan, know what your loved ones want, and follow through. Otherwise, that seven grand - which I really am not even that mad about, a lot of it has legal mandates and such behind it - will look like getting off super easy even if you can afford it.

PS This doesn't include flowers, they came from a shop owned by someone my family has known for forty years, they were not that much, but trust me, that's another thing you can get upsold on, hard.