Probably so. My mom's funeral was $16,000 in 1999 in the midwest and nothing particularly fancy either.
But there aren't just funeral costs. As a couple family members have learned you need to be able to put your hands on $25,000 cash immediately when someone dies.
My aunt died last year and even with a cheap cremation, there were a lot of expenses to keep my Aunt's house and estate going until everything could get sorted. Just because someone's dead doesn't mean bills stop coming. And my aunt had everything in a Trust and my cousin is an only child. Hell it cost my Cousin $11,000 to clean out her house, utilities, and to maintain it for 8 months.
I had a cousin drop dead at 43 of a brain aneurism a couple months ago. Same thing as mortgage still needs to be paid while her shit goes through probate.
Hell my father was in the hospital last week and a $15,000 fertilizer bill for the farms came due on his place. Now not everyone owns/runs farms granted and we have things set up where I can write checks on the farm accounts incase of this kind of event. But its one of the reasons why my wife and I keep $50,000 at the bank at all times.
I want to be nosy and ask what do they need 25 grand for? Does it cost that much to bury someone in New York?
Probably so. My mom's funeral was $16,000 in 1999 in the midwest and nothing particularly fancy either.
But there aren't just funeral costs. As a couple family members have learned you need to be able to put your hands on $25,000 cash immediately when someone dies.
My aunt died last year and even with a cheap cremation, there were a lot of expenses to keep my Aunt's house and estate going until everything could get sorted. Just because someone's dead doesn't mean bills stop coming. And my aunt had everything in a Trust and my cousin is an only child. Hell it cost my Cousin $11,000 to clean out her house, utilities, and to maintain it for 8 months.
I had a cousin drop dead at 43 of a brain aneurism a couple months ago. Same thing as mortgage still needs to be paid while her shit goes through probate.
Hell my father was in the hospital last week and a $15,000 fertilizer bill for the farms came due on his place. Now not everyone owns/runs farms granted and we have things set up where I can write checks on the farm accounts incase of this kind of event. But its one of the reasons why my wife and I keep $50,000 at the bank at all times.
That is called poor estate planning. Also, you are confounding estate expenses and funeral expenses.
Yeah, honestly it's not actually cheap for someone to die.