Not Quite Six Feet Under
Planning for death: One of our listeners
As part of our series on estate planning, we're talking to people familiar with dealing with death. This week, we hear from one of our listeners forced to confront her own mortality.
Hands on a casket (iStockPhoto)
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09/04/2008
I am a CPA and financial planner that specializes in helping families save money when making funeral arrangements. In my experience, most people are unprepared both emotionally and financially for death.
The best advice I give clients is to spend a little time examining funeral prices and options in their area. Doing so does two things:
1. it prepares them for the financial impact of death
2. it provides a natural starting point for discussing the emotional factors of death
Most people simply do not know enough about funerals to talk about them. However, once they gain a basic “funeral education” they find it MUCH easier to discuss, and make, appropriate financial, emotional, and spiritual plans.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of objective funeral information out there. Most funeral information comes from funeral directors themselves and tends to be slanted towards supporting the goal of selling a family a large, expensive funeral.
Our accounting firm prepared an objective funeral reference guide to teach our clients about death, dying, and funerals. It provides them with a basic funeral education and shares objective advice about funeral options and prices. It is also a great resource for estate planning professionals that need reliable information for planning purposes.
You can find out more about this resource and learn some legitimate low-cost strategies for planning a funeral here: http://www.funeral-tips.com.
07/27/2008
Great help for me
Thanks
From Fullerton, CA, 06/30/2008
I am an estate planning attorney and thought this was a great story. I am going to send your link to others. And would like to put a link to it on my web page.
My expertice is in the areas of Estate Tax Planning and Asset Protection. If i can be of any assistance to you please let me know.
Very respectfully,
Marty Burbank, JD, LLM
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