While it’s understandable why you might wish to avoid the subject of funeral planning, the financial stakes are simply too high for you to ignore it forever. You don’t want, for example, family members acting emotionally and buying services that you don’t want or need, driving up the costs of your final services. Thankfully, by preplanning with Reading, PA funeral homes, you can save your family a lot of grief and funds as well.
When most people hear the word “funeral,” they think of a more or less linear process with little room for flexibility. This isn’t actually the case, though. In everything from the type of funeral service you wish to hold to the goods and services you pay to hold it, a funeral allows degrees of customization, and the preplanning process letss you to make the most of it. This way, you won’t be paying an unnecessary amount of money.
For example, after reviewing a transparent list of funeral expenses, you and your family might decide that some kind of cremation service is the best option for you. The decision might come partly because you’ll have seen how the costs of a traditional funeral – embalming fees, a casket, the cost of the ceremony itself, a grave liner, a gravestone, and other assorted odds and ends, all add up. The opportunity to look at all of these different expenses might induce you to avoid some of them. In that case, you may decide to have a traditional funeral ceremony, where family and friends gather to pay their respects to the deceased and view the body, and then to have a cremation in the aftermath, rather than a burial. In this way, you would know that you can avoid the expenses of purchasing a casket (you can rent one for the traditional funeral ceremony before the cremation) and any other burial goods, such as a grave liner or even a burial plot.
The above is just one example of how preplanning can help you. At the end of this process, a contract will be agreed upon between you and the funeral home. You can pre-pay for the funeral once you decide what all it will entail, if you’d like. This can save your family the financial burden when the time comes to put your plans into action. Either way, the plans are in place and no family member has to guess at what you could have wanted.
Before you and your family decide on getting the preplanning process started, you should always speak with an experienced funeral director. Should you have any questions about preplanning with Reading, PA funeral homes, don’t hesitate to contact Kevin Bean of the Whelan Schwartz Funeral Home. With decades of experience in serving Pennsylvania families at this vulnerable time in their lives, he’ll answer whatever questions you have with empathy, caring, and professionalism. You can contact him by calling (610) 374-0962. The Whelan Schwartz Funeral Home can be found at 444 N 9th St. Reading, PA 19601.
