One question I get a lot is how much do funerals or cremations cost. My answer is that depends. In this blog I won’t answer this specifically or even generally, but I hope you will be more informed and able to make the right choices for you or your family. 

Costs very greatly depending on the type of service, casket, vault, headstone, flowers, cemetery and numerous other items. Costs even can vary greatly between funeral homes, from the super expensive to the discount. Discount funeral homes usually make their money on doing a high volume of business with as little as overhead as possible. They are usually located in a warehouse or store front, have older vehicles, and not as many employees as they should have. One common practice I do see a lot with discount, and sometimes expensive, funeral homes is that they will tell you a price to get you in the door, but the price that was quoted was for an individual service item and not everything that is needed. In our central Utah area there are some funeral homes that I would put in the expensive category; the rest of the funeral homes I would consider the middle of the road as far as pricing goes. 

I was talking with a couple from the Salt Lake area; they were telling me about their experience in getting a funeral plan. They said once a week for a few months, they visited all the funeral homes in their area and asked about funeral plans. They went to the super expensive funeral homes, down to the discount funeral homes. They ended up choosing a funeral home based on how they were treated and where they felt they got the best value. This funeral home was not the most expensive, but was probably more than the average cost in their area. My thought when I heard this is they did it right. You chose a funeral home that was best for you, and not based solely on price or who has the better name. 

One of my goals when I am serving families is that I want them to feel they got a good value. I received a compliment the other day that really stood out to me. They said thank you for making us feel like family, you weren’t just a person there doing the funeral it felt like a family member helping us with everything. That is what I try to do. 

To me the value of the funeral service, casket, flowers, headstone, ect. is not so much in the costs of things but did it help bring you closer, did it make dealing with the loss a little bit easier. My mortuary may not be the cheapest or the most expensive with the newest, best stuff, but I truly feel that I offer the best value. I will do my best to treat you as family and give you the service you want.

All this being said, the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) regulates funeral home price lists and how they are to be laid out. Which in my opinion unless you know what you're looking at it, can be kind of confusing. I prefer to talk on phone or sit down with a family to discuss costs, mainly to figure out exactly what you want or need so that I can give your family the best Value.