estranged father dying...funeral costs

celligraphy

Hello , found out recently that my father is dying , he has 6 weeks to 6 months to live , not very close , I do not work at the moment and have heard he had spent all his money and savings on drugs , he's currently living off welfare . I am his oldest child , haven't seen him in years but I have been in contact with his brothers and sisters from abroad and they are going to pay for the funeral but how much does it cost on average? the most I can give is 500 .

I feel emotionless writing this but deep down I am torn inside from the great times we had before he left my family ...

The Princess Bride

There is support for those who don't have financial means.

http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/social_welfare/social_welfare_payments/supplementary_welfare_schemes/exceptional_needs_payments.html

Look after yourself - in some ways, this has the potential to be more upsetting for you, than if you'd had a great relationship with your father these past years.
Grief Counselling is available if you feel you might need it.

Take care.

spurious

You can cut out a lot of expense by not bothering with newspaper announcements etc..

hairyslug

My mother's funeral cost €4500, I don't know a lot about funerals, this was the 1st one I had to coordinate with a funeral director, but I think it was a fairly standard funeral.

There are a lot of things that you can cut out to save money
Newspaper announcement was about 350
Donations to priests (parish priest, priest who presided over mass and priest at crematorium) 400. Just have it all in the crematorium, for me that was the nicest, simplest part of the day.
We paid 800 for a casket, to be honest, and I may sound blunt and a bit disrespectful (but I know how my mother would feel) but handing over 800 for it to be cremated was a difficult decision. (Caskets can be rented)
Car rental was also a fair whack, and that was just to pick up my aunts from Dublin and bring them to greystones.

I could go on, I'm on my phone so I can't see where you are from, if you are in south Dublin Wicklow, I can recommend a fantastic funeral director.
If not, just give a funeral director a call, they understand how this can be a difficult time and talk it through with them explaining you are on a budget.

Markcheese

Might sound a bit off - but since you have a bit of time - ring around a few funeral directors- especially outside of Dublin -my father in law delights in telling us about a funeral director from Louth who he met at a Dublin funeral who's so much cheaper than the few in Dublin who have it sewn up -
Wether that's true or not is a different story -