Get an idea of the cost
A traditional send-off will cost an eye-watering £9,658 on average, according to the latest SunLife Cost of Dying report. This includes £5,077 for a burial, or £3,795 for a cremation, plus probate fees, extras such as flowers, and a wake.
Comparison sites such as yourfuneralchoice.com, legacyoflives.com and beyond.life, provide quotes from local funeral directors. You’ll find the basic price but there are likely to be different packages and extra costs.
Fran Hall, the chief executive of the not-for-profit organisation the Good Funeral Guide, which offers impartial advice about the industry, says if you want to keep the price down: “Find a flexible, independent funeral director, who isn’t part of a large chain, who will work with you to find ways to reduce the costs involved. They should explain the costs of each stage, and explore whether you can find an alternative.”
You’ll find a list of independent funeral directors on the Good Funeral Guide’s directory.
Consider what you want
Poppy Mardall, the founder of the funeral director Poppy’s, suggests asking yourself these questions: do you want a cremation or burial? Do you want a religious or non-religious ceremony and a celebration afterwards? Are there things that really matter to you – a football team? Your allotment? Music? Food? How could these elements of your life be incorporated into your funeral?
Whether you want to be buried or cremated is a personal choice that may only be partly driven by cost. More than half (57%) of the funerals in the UK in 2022 involved cremation, according to SunLife. A quarter (25%) were burials, while the rest were direct cremations.
A direct cremation is cheapest but this option can be difficult for your loved ones. Your body is cremated without a service, and your ashes are sent to your family or scattered.
Some providers let you have a small number of mourners present but that may add to the cost.
Distinct Cremations, for example, offers a plan that allows you to have up to 20 people attend from £2,299. Your family could hold a celebration of your life at their home, or another venue.
Hall says: “For some people, a direct cremation might be absolutely the right thing, but we recommend careful consideration of the impact of choosing not to have a ceremony. We have seen enough wonderful funeral ceremonies to know what a transformative effect these can have on people still raw with loss and grief.”
Decide how to pay
Some people buy a prepaid funeral plan so that when they die their loved ones will not have to worry about money. These cover costs such as the funeral director, coffin, collection and delivery of your body. You can pay with a lump sum or in monthly instalments, and your family shouldn’t be asked for further payments in the future for anything covered by the plan.
However, funeral plan providers have faced criticism for their sales tactics and poor value. Thousands of people have also lost money as a result of the collapse of failed companies.
The Financial Conduct Authority introduced new rules in July 2022, regulating firms that offer prepaid plans. Customers of regulated firms are now covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, so you’ll still get your plan, or a refund, if your provider fails.
If you, or your relatives, have a complaint, you can go to the Financial Ombudsman Service. However, complaints can only be made about a purchased prepaid plan, not the quality of the services provided.
Beware that, according to the consumer association Which?, funeral plans don’t cover some fees, such as burial plots, the venue, family flowers or a memorial.
If you do not pay in advance, your executors should be able to access your bank accounts to release the money to cover costs.
If someone dies without enough money to pay for a funeral, and nobody can meet the cost, the local authority is responsible for burying or cremating them.
Look for savings
There are plenty of extras that families may want to include as part of a send-off, such as orders of service cards, flowers, a hearse, pallbearers, a wake and the catering. But there are ways to reduce the bill.
Family members or friends could carry your coffin as pallbearers, while flowers could come from their gardens, or a supermarket.
Design your own order of service, which you, or friends and family, can print at home, or create the whole ceremony yourself, with family and friends instead of a vicar or celebrant.
You don’t have to follow any particular rules. You could, for example, collect the body from the mortuary, bring it to one of the hundreds of natural burial sites in the UK, dig the plot, then bury the body and plant a tree. There aren’t any headstones or memorials.
Mardall says many crematoriums provide early morning bookings that can be half the cost of a cremation later in the day.
And there are slightly more quirky ways to save. She says: “We’ve known families use their family estate car to transport the coffin, or to hire an electric vehicle. A family we know cycled the coffin to the funeral on a trailer, with relatives and friends cycling behind.”
Record your wishes
You can help your family by making a note of your particular funeral wishes. You can include these in your will but it is better to write what is called a letter of wishes.
This sits alongside your will and can be easily accessed and updated. There are also online forms you could use.
For example, Royal London has a “when I’m gone” document that you can complete and print off to give to loved ones.
“But I think, more importantly, it’s crucial to talk through your wishes with the people they will affect,” Mardall says.
Poppy’s Funerals provides a free service called My Funeral Wishes to go through your needs, worries and hopes for your funeral in person. At the end of the meeting you get a record of your wishes to share and discuss with family and friends.