Why are funerals so expensive

When the cheapest price for a funeral comes to something around ten thousand dollars, one might just get the obvious question in one’s mind; why are funerals so expensive? In spite of it being synonymous with death and thus loss of a loved one, it is a business today and that is the main reason as to why a funeral is so expensive. Much of the exorbitant cost has to do with the fact that the big names in the funeral business offer a complete service or a total package system that though may relieve the near ones of the departed person of some of the hazards and responsibilities, is sure to pack a punch in the economic department. People often lose their economic senses in light of the seriousness and grimness of the situation, which of course, allows funeral homes to take advantage of the condition and thus raise the expenses.

Surprisingly, state laws are often found to be the main culprits that back the funeral homes in their excessive charging. An example of such laws would be the one that is in effect at the state of Tennessee since 1972. No one is allowed to sell a casket until and unless the person has a funeral director’s license or an established funeral company. What this law does is that it allows funeral homes to charge three or four times the actual price of a casket, just by putting its label on the casket. Tennessee is not the only state with such laws and that is why it’s expensive in most parts of the country. What one should keep in mind while buying a casket is that though more expensive caskets sound more respectful, a thicker metal would only interfere with the natural processing of the corpse and that is undesirable. Cheap caskets may actually be a better choice, not only economically, but also for the sake of the natural way of things to go. In fact, it might not even be a bad idea to not use a casket at all. In the long run, a coffin is actually quite unnecessary.

Embalming can be expensive and quite necessary if one plans to have a wake ceremony or if the body needs to be transported a long way; however, it’s unnecessary to embalm a body if none of the above is applicable and that is one way of saving on unnecessary costs during a funeral. Nonetheless, each day that a funeral house keeps the body in its cooler, the charge is going to be hefty for the preservation services they provide.

Adding a wake to the funeral ceremony definitely adds to the overall cost of a funeral, but having it in a funeral home can be way more costly than having it in a local church. If it is held in a church or somewhere else instead of the funeral home, the hearse will be transferred to that place by the funeral home and the casket will remain there till the day of the burial, on which it will be taken to the burial site by the funeral home once again.