About the only good news in this economy comes, amazingly, from the funeral industry.
No, the funeral people who last year raked in about $15 billion selling coffins, services, burial plots, urns, embalming and cremations, are not exactly thrilled these days. But you, the consumer, are in a better place.
By which I mean you are probably thinking more clearly than you used about the insane costs associated with funerals.
More and more people, according to Business Week, are reconsidering exactly how much should be spent on a burial plot with a great view, for example. “People typically sell burial plots which sell from $1500 to $4000 when they move to other parts of the country or get divorced. But growing numbers are doing it simply to raise cash…” the magazine reports.
Gone from the list of must-haves, evidently, are costly tombstones, limousine rides, and ornate caskets. Why? Because who can afford it these days? (And who needs it?)
As my friend Josh Slocum, the executive director of the excellent Funeral Consumers Alliance put it so well, “Are we going to bankrupt the living to pay for the dead?”
Apparently not. Long live common sense.
The downturn in the economy has spurred some creativity out there. I am seeing non traditional arrangements, green burials, cremation remains made into diamonds (yeah, I really heard you can do that!).
As for me, why not cremate Mom, split the ashes between the two boys and set her in a Maxwell House coffee can; top of the fridge where I can be in the middle of it all and get a daily “good morning!”…”
“Good to the Last Drop”…..smile!