“Here’s Dad,” the funeral employee said, as she walked back into the room holding a small cloth bag.
“This is it?” Dave asked.
Dave picked up the bag and felt its weight. “He did a lot in his life. For it to end like this … it doesn’t make sense to me.”
“You can still have a service,” she told him. “You can still find a way to honor him.”
Dave looked up at the laminated menu of funeral home prices posted on the wall. “One-day visitation: $5300. Funeral service director: $1800. Limousine: $450.”
My father just passed away. My brother and I shopped around for the most reasonable crematorium and paid about $1000. Then we had a small, intimate memorial service for him at his mountain home. That cost us nothing since it was pot luck and our guests brought all the food and drink.
Also, the rug can be pulled out from under anyone. My wife and I fought and struggled to get out of mountains of debt TWICE! I can’t believe that we didn’t learn our lesson the first time. Then we decided to take a pretty big risk. I’d become the stay-at-home dad while my wife went back to the US Army as an officer. It was eight years of moving all over the place, adapting, but paying off all our debt. We ended up leaving the military with about 80 grand in the bank. We used that money to give my wife almost 2 years off from work while she completed a LPN to RN program.
One tip I have for anyone out there is to have a savings account with at least 6 months worth of income from the bread winner of the family. If that bread winner were to get injured, for example, then you’d have 6 months for them to heal and not worry about money.
