Urgent Need Info

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
PCs sister in law's mother was blind, she acquired a very rapidly growing cancer a couple of months ago. There was no real treatment and no cure. Not long ago.......and I'll use her name because for this it really doesn't matter......Beth posted on fb for help with the upcoming funeral expenses. Her mother survived a lifetime on disability so you can imagine. No life insurance. The lowest cost funeral to adhere to her mother's wishes not to be cremated is 7k. Beth works 2 jobs and is a college student with 2 young children she is raising alone. Beth's sisters are all on welfare, so raising the funds in family is not happening.
Beth's mom passed yesterday. The fb fun raised 150.00 and most of that came from family and close friends. That is no where near the 7k needed.

easy child sells baked goods. She has started an online bake sale for Beth. She has 2 orders.....mine and another woman. She is trying to get her mother in law to put a jar for donations up in subway. I told easy child someone needs to contact places where Beth works / has worked and see if jars can be placed for donations. Then check other places to see if they'll do it too. Told her maybe contact some churches.

No clue how else to help this girl who is already overwhelmed with the loss of her much loved mother. I will donate what I can, Nichole has donated, easy child is donating plus the bake sale. There is no time to throw a yard sale together and donate the income.

Any ideas or experiences you have are welcome. Funeral home wants the money upfront, evidently no payment plans, which is becoming more popular these days.

Thank you.l
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
Check and see if she was in anyway connected to the military...spouse, child, etc. They can help somewhat. Now DDD also to me about somewhere that helps but I dont remember it. She told me back when KLMNO was going through her ordeal. Contact the funeral home and they should know. I think it was something like the Neptune Society.
 

dstc_99

Well-Known Member
Check with the local goodwill type stores. They usually cant give much but if you go to all of them it can really add up. Also local churches will often help out.
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
It wasn't the Neptune Society. They handle low-cost cremations. husband was cremated through them.

Was she a member of any church? Have you shopped funeral homes? Some do offer payment plans. She can be transferred to a funeral home that takes payments.

Does she have a cemetery plot? That's another expense to consider. It is a pity that death is such a big business.

My thoughts go out to her family and loved ones.
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
Well then I need to remember Neptune because all of us are being cremated. I still have my mom and grandmother at the other house. My kids are threatening to dump all three of us out in the woods when I go...lol.
 

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
jal she did set up a go fund me acct. I'll have easy child try goodwill and the churches.

I don't know if she was a member of a church. Funeral home shopping around.......well, we're not in on that part of things but I would imagine they've done that. Problem is she is being buried in Cincy where things are more expensive and no I doubt there is a burial plot either. So yes, that is another expense. I can be really tough to find a funeral home that will take payments. We have one and trust me, he's the exception to the rule........which is why poor folks go there......and still it's not cheap, I'm guessing the 7k is probably about as cheap as they could make it without cremation. I only know this because had I had visitation for Fred with the actual burial service thing it would've cost me several thousand more even with cremation. We opted out of visitation, we did our own memorial / grave side service and transported the ashes ourselves. I also know my mom recently made all her arrangements, paid for them in advance and it was more than 7k. Of course that is another state.

This is a woman who has already been through a lot, this diagnosis and the loss of her mother was all extremely fast. I'm sure the whole family has been blindsided.

easy child sells 31 bags and set up an offer that gives a discount to those buying and proceeds also go to the funeral. She's had several orders that way......but 7k is quite a goal to reach in a short time. :(
 

PatriotsGirl

Well-Known Member
My best friend's brother passed away last weekend and same situation - no life insurance and leaves behind four young children - 2 of them disabled. :(
They raised money through the Fund Me account, but the cost is much, much less. I am not site of he is being buried or cremated.
They also held a home run derby to raise money. He was a coach for many years. Only 38 years old. They are thinking massive heart attack. :(

Sent using ConductDisorders mobile app
 

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
PG I'm so sorry to hear of your friends brother. These types of situations are so hard on the families.

My last wishes are very simple. Cremation. Big whoop ass party (they darn well better have a ball) and I will be placed in the same plot as Fred. Won't cost any more than his did. A burial plot (a single plot) can contain 3 cremated remains.

I do hope to get life insurance in the future. Of course there has to be a full time job that isn't a temp job for that cuz I'm not buying one privately.

Beth is creeping up to 1k in donations. *sigh*

I wonder how long they can hold a body before burial is no longer an option?
 
S

Signorina

Guest
Forgive me for saying this and for being blunt, but she is dead and her living family's financial health far supersedes their late mother's desire to be buried rather than cremated. Even if they could raise the 7000, that money could be far better spent for the surviving family's benefit. Not to mention that they are stressing over raising the money in addition to grieving their deceased mother.

She is dead, she doesn't get a vote. It may be noble and right to honor the deceased's final wishes when the funds are available. It is far more noble not to burden ones family with unrealistic, unaffordable last wishes. It's not up to her children to provide a burial they can't afford if the mother herself could not afford it and did not have the means to provide it.

If she is in a better place (aka heaven) she will understand.

(And if there is no afterlife, she will never know)
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
Sign I so agree with you. I really have no clue what my mother wanted done when she died but I couldnt afford a thing. I found the cheapest place I could and my father loaned me the money to have her cremated. We had no public service. We did pay an extra 200 so the immediate family could see her one last time. I figured that was worth it since she had been in the nursing home so long and Jamie was in the Marines and hadnt seen her in a long time. After we saw her for that last time we went home and spent time together and that was that. A few weeks later I got her ashes.

I am so thankful my father made his arrangements 10 years before he died.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
I do not know how close you are to the family, or how the family would feel about this, so of course you may upset someone if you do this. I would sit down with a phone book or list of churches and start calling one after another. I would explain to each that Beth died fairly suddenly and did not have any resources and her family cannot afford the $7000 that is the cheapest burial that can be found in the area. Does the pastor/reverend/priest have any ability to help by donating to the fund, asking members of his church to donate or does he have any names/phone numbers of groups that could help?

Also the family may not know that the coroner's office should have some resources to point them to if they ask. Every area will have pauper's graves/cremation, and they should ask what is done if the family cannot afford to bury the person. The funeral home is required by law to tell them what the parts of the service cost and they should check online for things. It may sound odd, but deals can be found online for funerals, caskets etc... The funeral market is a HUGE racket and no matter what the funeral home says, those markups on caskets, flowers, etc... are often simply astounding.

Example 1 - for my adopted gpa's funeral the funeral home served cookies. Stale, walmart brand oreos and peanut butter sandwich cookies. They wanted to charge $150 for the 2 plates of stale cookies. Plates that did not hold an entire bag. They literally spent less than $5 for those cookies and thought they would get $145 for the extra special addition of stale. I knew we had chosen to not have their cookies because I spent all night baking cookies to take on my disposable trays. I spent maybe $10, we had great cookies for everyone (not just the 50 people who could have gotten one of those stale cookies) and my adopted gma did not get that crazy cookie price included on her bill.

Example 2 - Many funeral homes allow you to do a slideshow or montage of photos and videos for use during the visitation and service. Fees for this can be as much as renting a recording studio for a few hours. The fee to put together a 10 min looping presentation for my adopted gpa's funeral was quoted at over $2500. Not for playing the cd, for putting it together. The guy who does this is someone I went to school with and it takes maybe 30 min of his time. That is IF the family brings in total koi on a system that doesn't work with his AND he has to get rid of a virus at the same time. ANY work that takes more than 30 min is billed separately as something else and usually costs the family around $100 per hour of extra time as it is 'involved'.

My dad put together a slideshow of family photos and set the music up. All that the home had to do was to put the disc into the drive.

Often people are quoted packages and are not told what is in the package, much less the cost of each item included. By asking about each item/expense, you can often find th grossly inflated cookie pricing and other ways the bill is being padded.

I am so very sorry that easy child's sister in law's mom died. I hope this helps.
 

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
Sign, I couldn't agree with you more. If I were one of the daughters, that is what I'd be pushing toward.

I'm practical though, to a fault. Saying goodbye is one thing.......going overboard when you can't afford it is another.

Susie, I'm not that close to the family. I've met Beth a few times over the years, she's a nice girl who is trying hard regardless of what life has thrown into her path. I can't speak for her sisters, I've never met them. But I don't get the impression they're worth much and I'm not just talking financially. So, while I don't mind getting ideas (I pass them on to easy child) I wouldn't feel comfortable doing more than making my own donation.
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
that website was invaluable to me. I was always told I couldnt do certain things with my mom's ashes. Whatever!! Now I know exactly what I am going to do and her mother is just going along for the ride because I dont know what she would have liked other than to have been scattered over my late grandfather's grave.

My mom was nuts about two things. The Marines and Morehead City NC. Well three really but I dont know how to find the headquarters to the National Republican Party...lol. I am going to find a way to sprinkle half of my mom at the front gate at Quantico. They have a wonderful sculpture of the Marines with the flag. Then I will take the rest and dump them in the ocean at Morehead City. If I knew anyone who lived in Daytona Beach I would ask for help getting my grandmother home but I dont.
 

flutterby

Fly away!
In Ohio, if a person is indigent the state will pay for cremation. I only know this because that's what happened when my daughter in law's older sister died in August. We only found out because the funeral home told the family. I know they want to honor her wishes, but it just may not be possible.
 
Top