Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The friend should join a non-profit memorial society. Check this link: https://funerals.org/
If the husband is cremated the cremains are returned in a plastic box. They can be scattered vs buried. Costco also sells urns cheap.
I wouldn't do prayer cards, newspaper obituary - anything that costs money. Do order several death certificates.
Your friend needs to visit her husband's former HR department to determine if she is a 'survivor' on his pension.
The friend needs to discreetly contact a lawyer to determine her rights and obligations. Bring along a copy of her last tax return. I think she is entitled to a copy - if he is hiding it I would have my lawyer ask for a copy and have it delivered to the lawyer. With the information on the tax return she may be able to learn of any checking/investment accounts he is hiding. She may also be able to determine if he has credit cards/loans he is hiding. That doesn't help with safety deposit boxes, however.
The friend should join a non-profit memorial society. Check this link: https://funerals.org/
If the husband is cremated the cremains are returned in a plastic box. They can be scattered vs buried. Costco also sells urns cheap.
I wouldn't do prayer cards, newspaper obituary - anything that costs money. Do order several death certificates.
Your friend needs to visit her husband's former HR department to determine if she is a 'survivor' on his pension.
The friend needs to discreetly contact a lawyer to determine her rights and obligations. Bring along a copy of her last tax return. I think she is entitled to a copy - if he is hiding it I would have my lawyer ask for a copy and have it delivered to the lawyer. With the information on the tax return she may be able to learn of any checking/investment accounts he is hiding. She may also be able to determine if he has credit cards/loans he is hiding. That doesn't help with safety deposit boxes, however.
Men rarely die from prostate cancer.
Excellent points.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nell Plotts
Your friend needs to visit her husband's former HR department to determine if she is a 'survivor' on his pension.
At some (maybe even most) jobs the person gets to decide if their spouse gets 'survivor' benefits on their pension and once that person makes that decision (at retirement) it can not be changed.
As an example, I put my husband on my pension when I retired. While I received slightly less money per month, if I died first ---even if I died the first day after I retired----my husband would receive my full pension each and every month until he died (even if he lived until he was 105 years old). One of my friends did not put her husband on her pension (so she would receive a little more each month). When she dies, her pension stops completely. But, in their case, they have a substantial amount of money saved for their retirement so it really does not matter as much.
Now, they may have completely different rules for NY fire fighters on a disability pension.
Last edited by germaine2626; 02-17-2018 at 08:24 PM..
65 YOM with prostate cancer being treated or just diagnosed? Usually surgery is not done at that age, maybe radiation treatments? A life insurance policy worth enough to bury him would cost more in premiums that it would yield in death benefits.
There is no need for burial insurance at all. Check the curbs on trash day and look to see if anyone puts out bodies? NO? Of course not. If he is SS eligible they will pay $255 I think. Tell her to find out for herself where the nearest crematory school is and make arrangements beforehand to have his body moved there from the hospital where he dies, cremated, and placed in a jar. No embalming or coffin or any of that. Skip the funeral home BS and ask the family preacher for a memorial service. That could all end up close to free. It would be a liability for the estate, not her, anyway. She can scatter the cremains where ever she wants as they are not a controlled substance, just ashes. She could also arrange to have his body donated to science for medical teaching and she might have no expense at all.
If he is such a tightwad, just be sure she has his SSN card and (a copy of) the marriage certificate close at hand, and knows where he banks. If there is no will or living trust or account cosigners she gets everything in real property, personal property and assets. If alleged children show up, boot them out.
If she has a pension she probably has a bank. People there will advise her in general terms for free.
What does he want to happen to his remains after he dies?
Cremation is usually the lowest cost as you don't need a funeral home which IMO is a rip off to people and families.
If you do or he does want to be buried and have a funeral ceremony there are many things a funeral home does you don't need. There doesn't need to be a viewing, you don't need one of their caskets, you don't need to embalm a body in NY and most states, and with a closed casket you don't need makeup or body prep.
Seriously if he cannot discuss this with you and make sure you are OK then don't go all out. Find the cheapest way to do it. Let the funeral home hold his remains in the cooler and direct bury him(they will charge for this so call around for local pricing). Don't let the funeral home do the service for you. They are in the business to make money and everything they do is overpriced. Have a memorial for him at your house or other place to accommodate family and friends.
Very good point. Being pre-retirement, myself, I didn't think of that.
And those are the ones you want to walk out of, just like a sleazy car dealer. I understand they want to get paid, but doing so on a "loan" basis against insurance or pension proceeds, or just a glance at net worth and credit history, is quite common and considerate.
I've buried too many family members, some just far enough apart that we could not use a known funeral home. Twice, when the conversation began with the money and could we bring in a cashier's check before Step 1, we walked out... and found a family-trade house that didn't even bring up payment until all the other issues had been discussed.
The cash-first ones figure heavily on bereavement and confusion to get away with their practice. Don't let them.
indeed they do and shame on them that use that practice .
I just helped a neighbor navigate this procedure when her husband died he wanted to be cremated . I was with her at the funeral home and I was a gast at how much they were going to charge her . I told her to go outside , I had been through this already sadly the first husband died suddenly at my 32 nd bday and he was 35 . I told her let us find some local crematory to talk to them and we did and to cremate him was 4 thousand and she put it on her credit card and she is paying over time but it will take her 6 yrs to pay it off and they don't have any children or family left and she is like 85 so I don't know if she will ever pay it off .
She’s on the hook for a cremation in a cardboard box. That’s sub-$1000 most places and sub-$2000 in a high cost region. She can flush the ashes down the toilet afterwards if she wants. You don’t need burial insurance for that. If there is a will, the executor follows the instructions in the will assuming there is money in the estate to do so. If there is no burial directive, do the math on the valve of the estate. If “secretive” means there’s no money, don’t fling money you need to live into a hole in the ground.
At some (maybe even most) jobs the person gets to decide if their spouse gets 'survivor' benefits on their pension and once that person makes that decision (at retirement) it can not be changed.
As an example, I put my husband on my pension when I retired. While I received slightly less money per month, if I died first ---even if I died the first day after I retired----my husband would receive my full pension each and every month until he died (even if he lived until he was 105 years old). One of my friends did not put her husband on her pension (so she would receive a little more each month). When she dies, her pension stops completely. But, in their case, they have a substantial amount of money saved for their retirement so it really does not matter as much.
Now, they may have completely different rules for NY fire fighters on a disability pension.
However, in a lot of cases, if the spouse is not listed as getting survivor benefits then they (the surviving spouse) would need to sign off on that beforehand. My late H put me down for survivor benefits for his pension (a lifetime reduce amount). But, when I filled out my paperwork at retirement, I put him down for no survivor benefits. The reasons were twofold: he already had cancer and was also 14 years older than me. He said there was no use in my reducing my retirement benefits as there was very little chance that he would outlive me, and he didn't. However, he had to sign a notarized acceptance of "no survivor benefits" from the government before I could file for my pension. So she should definitely check with her H's HR department to see what, if any, survivor benefits she might receive, and if they were legally filed.
My friend is married to a very secretive man. He gives her money but does not allow access to bank accounts, etc., and she doesn't even know what money he has in the bank. She is interested in getting burial insurance for him (he has prostate cancer), but was told that he has to sign the contract, and he won't do it. Here is my question: she has a very small pension. Less than $500 a month. She is not yet 65. What if he dies and she cannot afford to bury him? Is she still liable for burial cost or can the state bury him and not charge her because she literally has very little income?
Marriage isn't for the timid. You sometimes end up with someone who wants to behave financially as though he's still single but with all the comforts of wedlock. (I suppose this could apply to a "she" as well.)
Indeed, I had this problem initially. So I didn't give him a choice. I took my beloved down to his bank and told the accounts person I needed to be added to his checking account, which already had his mother as an additional signer. DH found that it worked well for him; with me on the account I could set up online banking and do all the bill-paying.
Since I opened all the mail that came to the house, the next task was making myself sole beneficiary on all of his insurance policies, annuities, etc. which he darned well wasn't going to do on his own initiative. All of these institutions had online portals, so all I had to do was set a username and password for each. I kept track of each username/password combo and taped them to the file folder holding the monthly statements.
That's another thing the friend should check on: Beneficiaries. Since the friend's husband was previously married, he may still have his ex-wife listed as beneficiary on some document. A divorce does not negate that.
About 27,000 Americans died of prostate cancer last year. I hope some day deaths from prostate cancer will be truly rare, but we're not there yet.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
