Ok this is a bit morbid and honestly a piece of information I hope you NEVER need – but if you ever do… it may be really helpful to you to know this before hand. Honestly I don’t know about you but I don’t have an extra $7,461 lying around (thats the average cost of a funeral in NC) – I pray I have no need for funeral services for anyone in my life anytime soon but I’ll be grateful I took a little time to learn these rules should the need ever arise.

A while ago I was scrolling on Amazon and saw caskets. Caskets?! I thought- what in the world! I didn’t really think of it again until a few weeks later and a random TikTok came across my feed and the woman was explaining how her brother had passed away and how a seemingly random federal law saved her family a lot of money when they really needed to.  So I did some research and this is what I found:

This is the rule you need to know ( source FTC Funeral Rule)

There are lots of pieces of this rule that give you specific right but the parts I want to focus on here are these:

” You have the right to buy separate goods (such as caskets) and services (such as embalming or a memorial service). You do not have to accept a package that may include items you do not want.”

“The funeral provider cannot refuse to handle a casket or urn you bought online, at a local casket store, or somewhere else — or charge you a fee to do it. The funeral home cannot require you to be there when the casket or urn is delivered to them.”

Obviously, the planning of a funeral is often unexpected and new to us, so we aren’t sure of our rights or what to expect. At the same time we want to honor our loved one in the best possible way.

Now I have NO experience with caskets but I found some local funeral homes’ price lists.

I found one at a home near me that looks nearly identical to this one for $1795…but the online price here is $879.

Many homes don’t list their casket prices online (they DO have to give you a price list if you call or visit their office) but only ranges were online and most I viewed started around $1200 for their most inexpensive option.

When my sister’s Mother in Law passed away a few years ago, they had NO idea that they could order a casket on Amazon and have free prime delivery to the funeral home.  And that the funeral home couldn’t charge them any different for the rest of the service or even charge a fee.  Instead, the family was scrounging up money to pay for the funeral, including several thousand for a casket.

Don’t misunderstand my point in this post- I’m not saying this is a time to cheap out or cry over pennies.  The loss of a loved one is a trying time but I think that KNOWING this information LONG before you hopefully ever need it might be helpful.  Losing a loved one is hard- trying to figure out what we can afford for their funeral makes it that much harder.