Low sexiness factor, high practicality factor…
Shopping for funeral services.
As I’ve said in many posts, the prices of funeral services vary incredibly — by thousands of dollars for the same services. This is no joke or exaggeration. We need to shop around when buying funeral services, and most especially if you have a limited budget.
There’s a petition circulating right now for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to require funeral homes and crematories to post their prices online.
Does that not make sense?
Being in the awful circumstance of needing to plan a funeral is an excruciating experience. We are uniquely vulnerable, upset, grieving, overwhelmed, and possibly in complete shock.
And yet, unlike in any other industry, we’re rarely able to go online and see prices. We have to make phone calls and even then, are urged to visit in person rather than be provided prices over the phone (though funeral homes are requires by law to provide prices over the phone).
It’s time for this to stop. We need to be able to plan and shop with efficiency and ease at this worst moment in our lives.
Go here to sign the petition requiring funeral homes to post their prices (universally called, by law, General Price List) online.
Not as inspiring as hand decorating a casket or turning cremains into diamonds, but with Grim Reaper continuing to show up as a surprise more often than not… we need whatever we can do to lessen the suffering.