Dying is not cheap.
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When you go, your family will have some tough choices to make: how fancy do they want your send-off to be? Should it be an expensive burial or a not-so-expensive cremation - or even an ultra-cheap effort (no ceremony, just take you away and post them the ashes)?
Do you really need those flowers? Won't a cardboard coffin do - after all, you won't know your loved ones haven't chosen a solid wood one. They'll save money - and you won't know about it.
These are real questions for many bereaved people (and ones to ponder by the living). They affect every single one of us - no exceptions.
As such, over the coming days, The Canberra Times will bring you a series about the business of dying: those who work in it, those left behind and the different ways people are saying goodbye to their loved ones.
Above all, the cost of living affects the cost of dying. "Funeral poverty", where people are too poor to afford a dignified send-off, is real.
"There are people who pass away who have nothing or whose family have nothing," Malcolm Pittendrigh, founder of Salvo's Funerals, said. "Fifty families a week are coming to us for support."
Salvos Funerals was set up to shake up the industry. It aims to provide a funeral "that has genuine compassion at its heart with competitive, transparent and affordable cost options".
At the most basic, where there's no ceremony in Canberra - simply the body being taken to a crematorium in Sydney and the ashes returned to the family - the cost is $2793.
Some people prefer this simplest funeral not so much because of cost but so they can then arrange their own commemoration. "Just take Dad. Place him in a cardboard box, cremate him, and we'll have a meeting in the pub," as Mr Pittendrigh described it.
Either way, the Salvos Funeral prices are below the market rates, as they are meant to be so that ordinary people don't break the bank.
The Australian Seniors insurance company calculated that the most expensive place for a "premium" funeral (with a memorial service, flowers and a hearse) was the ACT at $22,361 (burial) or $9900 (cremation).
At the budget end (with no memorial service), it would cost a deceased Canberran's family $16,154 (burial) or $5953 (cremation). In the Northern Territory, WA and Tasmania, a basic burial would cost about $11,500.
Burial is much more expensive than cremation for the obvious reason that a grave is real estate, and real estate prices have soared. For the same economic reasons, country Australia is cheaper for burials than it is in the city.
The insurance company said that the most expensive burial plots were in Sydney ($13,028 in 2023, up from $4,540 in 2019).
In Canberra, they were $10,046 in 2023 (up from $8,159 four years earlier).
Price has driven the popularity of cremation.
"It's about a 70-30 split - 70 per cent cremations, 30 per cent burials," Michael Bridges, who manages the Norwood Park Crematorium in Canberra, said.
"Buying a burial spot is basically like buying a piece of real estate. Those prices and costs have gone up significantly over time, and therefore, cremation is more affordable than burial.
"However, in regional areas, it tends to be closer to 50/50. At Bathurst, for instance, we do cremate more than we bury, but it's probably around about 60 per cent cremation, 40 per cent burial.
"The big difference in costs between cremation and burial explains the big shift in recent years."
His crematorium is part of a national company, Propel Funeral Partners, which claims to be "the second largest private provider of death care services in Australia and New Zealand".
It is a business - but a business, he said, which was "commercial with a heart".
"We're not out there to rip people off. We're very mindful of the grief that families have to endure," he said.
"With every business, every type of transaction, we look at what the family want, whether it be in a memorial or a plaque or anything like that.
"We don't charge for baby cremations. We don't charge for cremations for children up to 17 years old. So we're very mindful of the impact that grief has on a family, and I think the industry as a whole is the same.
"Our margins are not as high as what people might think. Our operational costs have gone up dramatically.
"The cost of services such as electricity, gas have gone through the roof in the last 12 to 18 months.
"We've taken a big hit, trying to maintain our price points and be mindful of people's grieving."
He keeps an eye on the competition, the nearest of which is across the road in the form of the ACT government's Gungahlin Cemetery and Crematorium, part of Canberra Memorial Parks, which is a stand-alone authority within the ACT government.
It has to pay its way without taxpayers' money. It is a commercial operation that has to attract customers.
To do so, it competes on price but also by offering what customers want.
There is an area at the Gunghalin cemetery, for example, which is Canberra-themed. It features the roundabouts for which Canberrans like to think the city is famous.
The cemetery's manager, Kerry McMurray, chief executive of Canberra Memorial Parks, talks of "product" which featured Canberra landmarks: "One is Black Mountain Tower, one is the gang-gang cockatoo, and the other one is the Royal Bluebell."
The cemetery is new as cemeteries go - it opened in 1979, and the crematorium only opened in 2021, so it reflects modern multicultural needs.
There are sections for different faiths, including Aboriginal, Islamic, Jewish and Orthodox areas.
The crematorium is designed in a north-south direction to accord with Hindu funeral traditions.
There are traditional rows of graves, but there is also a natural burial area.
"It is a beautiful cemetery to visit all year round, especially in autumn."
"What people are looking for is changing in terms of celebrating the life of a loved one, and part of what we've done here is build a location that is nowhere else in the world."
