Reply #4: Let's see, my grandmother's funeral bill....

[moriah]

Charity-rate cremation -- $400
Body Transport charge - $150 (She was over 600 lbs at death and we had to pay for the body to be taken in a special vehicle on a special gurney to the crematorium)
Flowers -- $150 (a very nice casket-spray type setting)
Fabric -- $3 (three satin fabric remnants from a fabric store)
Shovel -- $10 (broken after the funeral)
Preacher -- $30 (he didn't charge but it's customary to give a gratuity and that's what I could afford)

She already had a spot picked out where she wanted her ashes buried.

My father and his cousin dug the hole. We laid one piece of fabric over the hole itself, one over the pile of dirt, set her ashes down, covered them with another piece of fabric, covered the fabric with the flowers. The preacher came out to do the graveside service. My father and his cousin then wrapped the ash container with all of the pieces of cloth, put it in the hole, filled the hole, and we put the flower spray on top of it.

I have been saving to get her a headstone or some other type of marker. She had no burial insurance or any savings, neither did my father, and a girl pulling out in front of me a few months before the funeral was the only reason I had enough money to have her cremated at all.