Once your senior years are nearing, one natural instinct is to have your affairs in order so if your time to exit this life arrives “before expected”, your estate is ready to go. “Getting your affairs in order” means many things.
It means ensuring that your financial obligations are paid off and your investments are where they should be. It means ensuring that your insurance policies, stock documentation and all other financial information is secure and where your primary caregiver can get to it to resolve your financial affairs if you're gone. And it means ensuring that you have a will and that it's up to date so there isn't any question on what should happen in the event of your death.
One part of your final preparations that also should get some attention from you is your funeral service and also your funeral arrangements.
For some, there is an appeal to buy your funeral plot, casket and related services before hand. The appeal of making this kind of arrangement is twofold.
First, by buying everything in advance, you're certain your will is done just as you wanted it to. You can buy the casket you want to be set in or make arrangements for the cremation if that's your choice. You can lock down the costs for the burial and know exactly where you will be laid to rest. And that can offer you a lot of peace of mind.
Secondly, it gives you peace of mind that your kids won’t need to make all of the choices after you pass away at a time when they will already be emotionally distraught. Funeral homes give you a valuable service but they're also a business and they know that they could get grieving relatives in just after the passing and sell more expensive funeral arrangements and an elaborate casket since your children are hurting and wish to offer you a fit memorial.
However, there is a downside to doing your funeral arrangements ahead of time. You should only consider it if you're sure you aren't going to move again. More than once a retired couple gone to live in the state where the children had transferred only to be saddled with a prepaid funeral plot in a town that will not end up being their final resting place.
Additionally, that prepaid funeral deal is a contract between you and the funeral home. If something happens to that funeral home, it’s not sure that contract will be honored by the next owners. Also, if the funeral home disputes the contract once you are gone, your children will have to fight that out with them which is a lot worse than just purchasing what they need for you to have a nice funeral during the time.
There can be some different methods of getting some of the decision making process out of the way without saddling yourself and your kids with an unreasonable contract that may or may not be honored years or decades from now when you're gone.
You can go to the funeral home you might consider working with and go through all of the steps of prepaying until they present you with the final contract with all of the costs listed. Then you can take that contract and leave and tell them you will be using that contract as the grounds for your will and your heirs will be required to respect your decisions.
In this way you have the exact coffin you want and you know the services you'll allow. You also have the costs so you can set up a savings account or trust fund that is to be used mainly for these costs.
By doing so, you still keep the worry about the costs of your funeral away from your grieving relatives but you give them the liberty to use those funds properly as outlined by your instructions.
Then you're able to use that information to write a very specific will that has rock solid instructions to your executor and your heirs that these are your wishes and they are not to be violated.
Your children can take that document to that funeral home and buy only what you allowed in that will. In that way you have empowered them to be immune from the skilled sales tactics of funeral homes during that week when they are presently in grief and susceptible to suggestion.
More on the basic Resources for Senior Citizens
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