Cremation. No funeral. Just family. That's how my family has handled it. When my brother passed his ashes were placed in a cardboard box. We buried them and planted a tree on top. In time, the minerals will help create a beautiful cherry tree.

Well, we can bury her, burn her, or dump her.......Or we can eat her. Monty Python.

I like the idea of having a tree planted over my body. No embalming or coffin. And a huge party and art exhibition in remembrance.

There are many cheap and environmentally friendly alternatives, including cremation, having the ashes turned into a tree or melted into jewelry, as some companies do, or burying people in cardboard coffins without embalming, and letting them decay normally.

Here in Thailand, each Buddhist temple as a cremation furnace building to take care of the dead.

Funerals are for the living. Most of the living have incomes.The industry preys on their grief to get a piece of that income, bigger the piece, the happier they are. Make your wishes known before you die.

I think its hard unless they don't find your body. I had a friend pass who wanted to be cremated. THey made the family buy a casket to be cremated in. THat seemed criminal to me

Here's what I'm going to do. I love ocean swimming and surfing. I'm going to move to southern Mexico on the Pacific coast and go surfing everyday. When I get old and feeble, I'm going to go swimming regularly where a river empties into the ocean...known habitat for sharks. I will be eaten by a shark...end of story.

Hi, I feel the same - my eldest son (my executor) - I've left written instructions as to my funeral; a pressed cardboard or pine coffin - no service of any kind, ashes to be taken to the nearest untouched forest then scattered to the wind.. All this is in my Last Will and Testament. I'm a fierce athesist, and I refuse to fatten anyone's wallet by the cost of a ridiculously costly ceremony. Also, some years back I took out funeral insurance which will cover cost of cremation - anything left bequeathed to my chronically ill daughter. My family will honor my wishes but I understand an executor can over-ride an issue if he/she sees fit. My advice - see a Lawyer.

In your situation, I would let my children know my wishes ahead of time, so they don't go overboard buying you the best funeral out of misplaced guilt. Then I would opt for cremation. That is my plan. What do you think?

There is a company here in Phoenix called "ScienceCare". I say they are like Enterprise because they pick you up! When you die, they arrange for your body to be picked up, and donated. They do with your body as they will, and after a few months, what remains (no pun intended) is creamated and returned to your family/friends/ whomever, if you wish. I've been signed up for years. I'm not sure if this service is available in every state, but this is my solution to an expensive, unneccessary funeral/burial/cremation.

Someone else said it, preplan and prepay. When you do this you can pay in installments and it works like insurance. As long as you are current with your payments for at least one year you’re policy will be paid in full even if you pass before paying for the whole thing. It will also keep your loved ones from spending hours in a room arguing about what you would have wanted. The smallest things like glasses on or off during your viewing can start arguments among siblings in this situation. That time would be better spent consoling each other. Do your family a solid and write your wants down AND TELL THEM WHERE TO FIND THIS INFORMATION ONCE YOU ARE GONE!
Trust me, I worked as a family counselor at a funeral home. Everyone with children should have life insurance and preplanned/prepaid funeral arrangements.

I tried a deal with Queens university Belfast to give them my post mortem body for dissection and learning because they ask for that but the consent forms that came back, on every page ,had disclaimers about how we might not want your body and then we'll give it back your realtives to bury. So not the best deal either.

Be sure you know the laws in your state. Unfortunately funeral directors will try to up-sell by doing things like saying you need a casket for a cremation or a cement liner for a grave. In many states you canbe cremated in a cardboard box or even without a container. Don't give in to the nonsense that the amount paid is somehow related to how much they cared. In fact, here in Wisconsin you can pre-plan and pre-pay yourself.

Talk to your relatives about what you want. Research options available where you live. Talk to your kids! Pre-plan as much as you are comfortable. Remember the funeral is really for the living.

It's all business, just a way to commodify someone's greef. There are lots of alternatives: cremation, green burials, indigent burials. I wouldn't want a big funeral, either. I'll be long gone by the time it happens, anyway, just find somewhere to get rid of the body and be done with it. ?

The easiest way to not burden your kids is to take out an insurance policy to cover the funeral costs. My mum did this, but it wasn't active for long enough (2 years) to pay out. I think we got a refund on her premiums up to that point, and a discount with the Co-Op, since that was who the policy was with.

She wanted to be cremated in a cardboard coffin, for environmental and cost reasons. It turned out that a cardboard one was 50% dearer than the standard wooden one. Futhermore, a lot of cremetoria (including the one we wanted to use) don't allow cardboard coffins. Under the circumstances, we felt she'd have opted for wood, so that's what we did.

You could argue that it's a bit of a cartel: people are always going to need to dispose of their dead relatives, and they have you over a barrel. But they do a surprising amount of work for their money. I think my mum's cost about 4K in total, but that included them collecting the body from the hospital, presenting it for viewing in case anyone wanted to, providing staff and cars for the cortege, supplying the flowers and paying any fees to the crematorim. I certainly didn't feel like we'd been ripped off.

The cheapest way is cremation, with no frills or extras. When I die, my instructions are: creation, with no funeral or service, and my wife and daughters cattering my ashes near my favorite fishing spot in Kansas. Total cost -- cremation $700 - $800 plus cost of flight to Kansas.

Lighter fluid and a match????

Prepay for a funeral, or, more economically, for cremation. If you work directly with a cremation society the cost should not exceed $2,000. A funeral, with embalming and burial, can easily cost four times that much. Make sure your survivors know what arrangements you have made. If you leave everything up to them, you are increasing both their stress AND likely the costs as well.

I donated my father's body to science (as were his wishes). They even paid for the cremation.

Its macabre, I know. Yet it makes sense to let future doctors work on the dead first.

Cremation is the simplest and least expensive option. My with and I both plan on being buries; however, because WE JUST DON'T KNOW what happens after death. I want all my organs and parts inside of me just incase.

You don't have to worry about it, the simplest way get your body to burn or you can allso donate yourbody to science, do you know that there are non-profit organization in charge of whole body donations. believe it or not corpses are necessary to train young doctors, forensic scientis, death detectives. analist, microbiologists, brain doctors, etc... your whole body can just go straigth to science and make of it an important tool for the future.