When the intention for preplanning is to offset stress, guilt, and sorrow, the process of planning a final goodbye can be a satisfying experience. Given that the cost for conventional funerals today is between $8,000 and $12,000, preplanning eliminates many pitfalls of rushed decision-making. When consumers take the time to comparison shop and consider personal preference, many obstacles are reduced or even removed.

Conventional Funeral
Expenses associated with planning a conventional funeral can include, but often are not limited to:

• Services of a professional funeral director
• Embalming
• Storage of the body
• Venue for the service
• Religious official
• Obituary
• Flowers
• Hearse, police escort, and family limousine
• Coffin
• Cemetery plot
• Headstone

Cremation
Cremation began to gain popularity as the costs for conventional funerals increased. Cremains can be buried, scattered, or kept. Typically, cremation has less associated expenses which can include:

• Cremation
• Urn or other simple vessel
• Plot, if burying the cremains is preferable

Green Burial
Consideration for the environmental impacts cremation and conventional funerals have on the planet has given way to green burial. Sustainability and simplicity are optimal for green burial. Embalming is not performed because complete decomposition of the body, resulting in its return to the soil, is the ultimate goal of green burial. Because simplicity is akin to green burial, many costs are eliminated, if not eliminated completely.

Conclusion
Can preplanning be viewed as a gift? Absolutely, in that survivors are not left to make decisions that draw their attention away from what their primary focus should be – to mourn their loss and to celebrate the life of their loved one. To learn more about planning final arrangements,
visit http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fy1466.

Sources:
Federal Trade Commission. (n.d.). The FTC Funeral Rule. Accessed on October 3, 2017. https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0300-ftc-funeral-rule

Green Burial, An Environmentally Friendly Choice. Funeral Consumer Alliance. (n.d.). Accessed on May 24, 2018. https://funerals.org/?consumers=green-burial

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