Have you made arrangements for your own final arrangements?

Yes, I took care of everything including funeral prepaid. I was at the lawyer to change my mom's papers after the death of my father. The lawyer said to me that if I were in a car accident and disabled or in a nursing home from injuries, who would take care of my bills, my care and end of life decisions. I thought since I owned nothing, why have all that. He said it would cost a lot of money for a relative (my brother) to go to court and be appointed guardian versus the very small amount it cost to set up the POA, will, etc.

Prior to my father qualifying for Medicaid I helped my mom pay for funeral/burial arrangements. Simple and inexpensive. When my dad died, it was so nice to have that all done and my mom's paid for out of their funds prior to Medicaid. In reviewing my mom's plan recently, I called the funeral home to make sure everything was still good and happened to ask about the cost today versus what she paid for years ago. I was shocked at the increase in cost. Hers was locked in when we bought it, never to change. Then and there I realized that buying the same thing for myself now would make sure it was taken care of and stop inflation on it. Now it's paid for at today's rate and never changes.

All of this being done was so much help in taking care of my parent. I knew if something happened to me I didn't want my brother to have problems.

I have yet to prepay for my end of life care, but it is high on my priority list. When my husband passed away suddenly 11 weeks ago, it was a shock all the decisions that I needed to make. I spoke with my Estate planning attorney to find out the average cost of cremation (what both my husband and I wanted), then contacted neptune society. Turns out their cost was about half what my attorney stated as average. They were very easy to deal with, and no sales push at all. I had taken a friend of mine that was emotionally detached to make sure that I would have someone to keep me in line if the sales pitches got out of hand. There was no need to worry with them - they are truly just service oriented - the consumer makes their own decisions without any 'up-selling' at all. Evidently their philosophy is that they never want to be on 60 Minutes for shady sales practices. As soon as I recover from this unexpected expense, I will have mine prepaid and all set up.

Not yet, but I have all of the arrangements made for my husband who is in the end stages of dying. We are doing a brain tissue donation to the Harvard Brain Bank for Lewybody/Alzheimer's. And also a full body donation to IIAM for other organs. They even do the cremation and everything is free. They have an online memorial gallery and an annual ceremony for families in Phoenix. We even have the plans made for a musical memorial! He loves music so we will have a live musician sing songs and we will tell stories in between. When I get through this, I want the same arrangements for me and will put that on paper.

I do not recommend pre-paying a funeral home. Several reasons, you might change your mind where you want the services to be. Put it into an account at your bank. We recently did my dad's. All papers were filled out, my mom has a copy, I have a copy and one is in a joint safety deposit box. Dad has Alzheimers and has a 'habbit' of hiding things. So we put his special items in the box. BE CAREFUL of your stated laws. Even upon making the arrangements and paying for everything, upon your death, your desires no longer matter. Your next of kin can come in and cancel your plans and give you a paupers funera!. This happened to a friend in Michigan. So be careful. Another suggestion, is if you or someone else has a digital camera, I took pictures of the flowers sent to a funeral. I printed them on a small photo printer. They enclosed one photo in the thank you card and kept one photo for thier rememberance.

As far as the next of kin coming in and changing things (giving a paupers funeral), this can happen more easily with money in a bank account. The important thing that people need to be careful of, is to make sure the person handling the end of life affairs is not only honest and reliable, but that they KNOW what your end of life wishes are in detail. As far as pictures of the flowers, some religious organizations do not allow photos to be taken in the chapel or sanctuary itself, so be cognizant of this as well.

well i will be buried at the veterns cemetary where my husband just went i know that for sure and i have some money saved so my 2 sons won't have to pay for anything so i think i am ok right now. Really my husband and i never really thought we would die soon but you just never know i thought that we would die together because we rode our harley so much and had so many close calls instead my husband got colon cancer and died in 17 months from dx.And during the 17 months we did nothing about the funeral until he passed and then it was up to me, he did not want to talk about that stuff at all. So I do have plans for me .

Rest in Peace Honey dx nov 07 died April 16th 09

I am actually arranging for a Finality Planning presentation for a support group for senior HIV+'s. They are not permitted to 'donate' their bodies to the medical college because of transmission risk.* (Yeah, I question that, too!) I have found extremely helpful information on this site that will help our group put together specific questions to ask our panel of (4) local funeral home directors - everything from finding financial assistance for help with burial costs to questions about local & state laws.

All members in the group are low-income, on Social Security (either disability or retirement), with no previous arrangements, and no other resources such as family members, burial benefit plans, etc. They have lost 3 members within the past year and are currently very conscious of how close their time may be. Our presentation is tentatively scheduled for January.

The benefit to me, of course, is that I will also learn things that I will need to know in regard to my own finality plans, including transport of my body to a family cemetery out-of-state and avoiding an autopsy. (I had been told that the state of NY requires that every body is autopsied in this state, and also that only if there is a question of cause of death or suggestion of foul play is it required - somewhat contradictory to the starred statement above . . .)

Incidentally - two things as info in general are that we had a funeral home locally that was busted for shipments of drugs in caskets. It was big news! Also, my parents have pre-paid everything or pre-ordered everything, and my brother has all that information and power-of-attorney to access payment accounts. However, I had seen on television awhile back that casket manufacturers often pull a bait-and-switch at the time of the actual need that costs much more than the pre-ordered item. The mfrs.' claim is that 'that model is no longer available.' I keep telling my mom to check on occassion, but she seems to trust the paperwork she has. Time will tell, but I hope there's no surprises.