Recently a friend of my daughter’s suffered the unexpected loss of a family member who lived in another state. Her friend’s mother is unemployed, and the friend herself doesn’t earn much money. Abby offered “to do what I do best: comparison shop to find them the best deal.”
The best she could find had a $1,200 price tag. And of course it turned into a post on her website, I Pick Up Pennies: “The cheapest ways to be dead: How to save money on cremations & funerals.”
Thinking about your own death might make you feel a bit…nervous. Encouraging relatives and friends to think about their own deaths might make them feel you’re plotting something.
Do it anyway, she advises:“People can die suddenly. And you (or your next of kin) really don’t want to be Googling ‘how to save money on cremations’ or ‘frugal funeral’ in the thick of bereavement.”
To be clear: She’s not dissing those who want elaborate celebrations! She’s pointing out that not everyone makes financial arrangements for that last hurrah – and their loved ones could go into debt (maybe deeply into debt) covering the costs.
Give it a read, write your danged will already and let everyone in your family know your wishes.
Don’t let inflation eat your cash
Inflation worrying you, especially in terms of your savings? Join the club. Then consider doing something about it, with help from the Bitches Get Riches blog.
“Cash savings during times of high inflation are guaranteed to lose value,” writes Kitty, one-half of BGR.
This hurts everyone, and it especially hurts “people who’ve been saving up for a long time to hit a life milestone.”
So what can you do? “How to protect cash savings during high inflation” gives you some tips:
- Spend it. Strategically, of course.
- Pay down debt. Especially if it’s variable-interest debt.
- Optimize it. High-yield savings accounts, bonds and the like.
- Invest it. Maybe – and, again, strategically.
- Reconsider your emergency fund. Blasphemy? Possibly not, especially as regards how much of it should be liquid.
Obviously this advice is more complex than the bullet-point approach above, so please read the article to tease out the why of it all. Fair warning, though: Kitty and her co-founder, Piggy, are cheerfully profane. If earthy language bothers you, read it near your swoon couch. But do read it.
Is wasting time really waste?
Lisa, an attorney who blogs at A Lawyer and Her Money, wrote recently about garbage time vs. quality time. The notion sprang from a Jerry Seinfeld anecdote:
These guys that talk about “quality time” – I always find that a little sad when they say, “We have quality time.” I don’t want quality time. I want the garbage time. That’s what I like. You just see them in their room reading a comic book and you get to kind of watch that for a minute, or [having] a bowl of Cheerios at 11 o’clock at night when they’re not even supposed to be up. The garbage, that’s what I love.
In a thoughtful post called “Why I love wasting my precious time,” she expounded on Seinfeld’s theme. Here’s one of the parts that stood out to me:
“Quality time is the weddings, the birthday parties, the anniversaries, the vacations you go on with your friends and family. Garbage time is showing up for those people day after day for their garbage days.
“Ultimately, garbage time is where you spend your friendship. You don’t recognize it when you’re in it, but that might make it more valuable.”
Lisa noted that she used to watch a YouTuber whose carefully curated life was so beautiful that it hurt a bit. “But not every moment of your life has to be beautiful. Actually, none of the moments have to be beautiful. Outward perception of beauty doesn’t make your life beautiful. Your perception of your life is what makes it beautiful.
“It’s the little, private moments – we don’t give them enough attention or praise.”
There’s a lot to unpack in this post. I suggest you give it a read, because I think you’ll relate.
Readers: Have you made your final-arrangements wishes known? Whatcha doing with your cash? And do you take time to appreciate the “garbage time” in your day-to-day living?
My parents had prepaid, preplanned funerals. That saved me so much time and paperwork. All I had to do was write thank you notes and cancel Mom’s bank account. As the nursing home costs dwindled her money (she died with $400 left of her considerable savings), we would not have been able to manage without paying for it ourselves. They also had bought their grave plots and stone marker. All I had to do was supply dates. What a blessing!
She did not want a service, so the relatives gathered for a meal.
As my brothers and I noted, among the three of us only one child was born. We did not want him to do all of the work, so we all have prepaid funerals to make it easier on him. We also have a 3rd party (the family lawyer) handle a lot of it. He has also been prepaid. We joked that we might have to employ a professional writer to handle thank you notes as he is horrible at that, but then, we’ll be dead and won’t care lol.
My husband and I have pre-paid for our cremations. His father did this, and it made things much easier. My mother also had a pre-paid funeral, although I did the work of setting it up as she was quite ill by then.
Our family is dwindling down to almost nothing and we want to make things as easy as possible.
Send your flowers to the living! Have big birthday parties. Make memories now.
BTW. I get the quality time theory somewhat. When you feel like you have forever you take the person for granted. When you know time is limited due to age, illness, military deployment or just physical separation you spend your time differently. It is like when I got on a week’s vacation. I may sleep late and watch trash TV midday the first couple of days because I am resting. Day 6 and 7 I am getting up early to visit the beach before breakfast.
We haven”t prepaid funerals but there is money set aside for that. What I have done is try and make things easier. I try to get rid of what I know we don’t need to keep so there is less to go through. I have gone through each room and made a list of things I think would be nice if my girls kept…things that say belonged to great grandparents that are family heirlooms. We have a binder that we keep in a bedroom closet. It has all of our important papers…wills and insurance policies and account numbers and who to call about what etc I keep the list updated each January. I remind both girls routinely and always before we go on a trip to “remember where the blue binder is”.
I purchased pre-paid cremation plans for my husband and myself. It will make it much simpler for the survivors and it’s cheaper because the plan locks in the price. In addition, he is a veteran, so I already have submitted our names for clearance for free placement in a VA national cemetery. Another option is to check with your local ordinances about private burial. I know of some people buried on their own property by family.
Yep, it can be legal to do that in some areas. But as you say, check with local ordinances first! For example, they might require that a doctor (or funeral home director) sign a certificate first. You don’t want to find that out after you’ve already filled in the grave.
I learned about garbage time when I was so ill that the doctors told my husband I was unlikely to make it. I had thought that when I knew I was going to die, my husband and I would have those last deep discussions. Instead, I laid in my hospital bed and he sat in the recliner and we watched mindless programs and he fed me grapes, about the only thing I could stomach. It suddenly came to me that we had had all the deep discussions and most of our life was just sharing stupid stuff or being with each other. I survived due to an experimental surgery, but I have never forgotten that lesson. Since then, however, he has always asked me to go on errands with him because he just likes having me around. I don’t always feel like going but I go because it is those times we stop at a park and watch the birds or get an ice cream cone and sit in the car eating it and listening to Broadway show tunes. We would never plan to do those things, but they come out of garbage time together.
I hear you. Just being in the same orbit with DF makes me feel happy, whether we’re going to the symphony or perusing the dented-can bin at Fred Meyer.
Some would consider that garbage time. I (and probably you) would think of it as “togetherness.”
My mom downsized at every chance. By the time she moved in with my husband and me, she had a few pieces of furniture and quite a bit of artwork. She donated her body to science (Genesis in TN), and when she was done teaching folks – they cremated her remains and sent her back to us. We talked quite a bit about her wishes, and she went just like she wanted! My husband and I hope to live like that: we’ve gotta get on the stick!
As someone in my senior years with no family, I’ve thought about prepaying for my cremation and for an attorney to act as executor. The thing that has stopped me is the thought of what if the cremation company goes bankrupt and closes? What if the attorney predeceases me or stops practicing? I would love to hear any thoughts/ideas/comments.
My pre-paid plan is portable to any other funeral home/crematory that is in the insurance plan’s network and the plan is guaranteed by the insurance company, not the individual funeral home. Some plans can be revocable and cashed in if you change your mind after a certain point. A law firm would surely be able to guide you on choosing an executor. If a lawyer in the firm dies or leaves, I assume other lawyers step in and take over. Another place to talk this over is with your banker or investment firm, if you have those.
You might choose to talk this over with a few funeral homes. Our local funeral homes hold informational seminars in which those questions can be asked. Ask lots of questions! You should be comfortable with the answers before you decide.
Thank you Jo!