Pre-Planning Cremation: Why It Makes Sense For Your Family

Thinking about cremation might not be the most pleasant thing in the world, but it’s well worth the potential discomfort. By pre-planning your cremation, you can reduce stress, save money, and ensure that your wishes will be followed—all while maintaining the flexibility you need to change your arrangements whenever you see fit. 

Pre-Planning Reduces Stress

Death is stressful—and that’s putting it mildly. Processing strong emotions while answering a slew of questions about what your loved one would have wanted can be beyond surreal—and in the worst-case scenarios, there can be high-pressure sales tactics leading to unbelievably stressful situations.

Planning in advance eliminates a lot of this stress—your loved ones won’t need to worry about deciding what you might want or need, as you’ll have it all planned out for them in advance. 

Buying in Advance Can Limit the Financial Burden of Cremation

There are two basic ways in which pre-planning your cremation can reduce financial burdens:

• You may pay substantially less than if you didn’t pre-plan.
• Your family won’t need to worry about paying for your cremation service.

The first point is fairly straightforward: Inflation will cause the cost of cremation to rise over time. Prices rarely go down, and buying in advance means you’re “locked in” to a better price, even if rates increase over time.

Secondly, your family won’t need to worry about paying for those costs. Finances can become incredibly complex after someone dies, and it can take weeks or even months to sort everything out. By purchasing in advance, your family won’t need to worry about cremation costs or associated costs like urns.

Pre-Planning Ensures That Your Wishes Will Be Followed

Do your loved ones know that you want to be cremated? Purchasing your cremation service in advance will ensure that your wishes will be followed. You’ll also be able to make other choices, including what kind of urn you want.

We encourage you to make other arrangements when pre-planning your cremation—you can tell your loved ones what kinds of flowers or music you’d like, as well as where you’d like the ceremony to take place, what you want them to do with your ashes once you’re cremated, and more. 

You’ve Still Got Flexibility

You’re not locked into any of the services you pre-purchase. You can still change which urn you want or even move away from cremation altogether. This means there’s basically no disadvantage to pre-planning a cremation service—if you change your mind about any facet of the service, you can easily make changes.

Here at Alterna, we can help you pre-plan your cremation—it’s one of the many ways we strive to make cremation services easier to understand and more accessible to Manitobans. Give us a call—we’d be happy to talk you through the process of pre-planning cremation.