Cutting the Cost of Dying

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It can cost a lot of money to die nowadays. The average funeral cost in the United States ranges from $12-15,000. There are a few ways to cut that cost. It is possible to save thousand on funeral costs, perhaps even eliminating them completely if you look at different options for your final arrangements.

One way to cut your costs is to donate your body to science. If you qualify, you can donate your body through an organization such as BioGift. The donation process takes approximately four weeks to conclude. By this time, the family or next-of-kin will have received the cremated remains, and any requested certified copies of the death certificate. There is no charge for the cremation or death certificate. It is doubtful many people are donating their bodies to science just to save money. If you are considering a making a gift of your body anyway though the savings is an additional benefit.

Cremation is another way to significantly cut the cost of final arrangements. A direct cremation can easily be done for less than $1000. You have to be careful though. If you add services, a fancy casket, and a cremation niche than the cost could be as much as a traditional funeral. Even if you don’t need a casket you could be charged as much as $125 for an alternative container that is just a cardboard box.

If you decide to go with a traditional funeral you do not need to buy a casket from the funeral home. You can buy your own casket online or even at Costco. This can amount to a savings of thousands of dollars. The FTC requires funeral homes to accept third party caskets without charge.

The law requires funeral homes to give you written price lists for products and services. You should compare the prices of several funeral homes for the services and products that you want to find the best deal. You should also remember that you do not have to buy a package. You can buy just the services you want. The FTC has lots of tips on shopping for funeral services that can help save you money. Your final arrangements do not have to cost your loved ones a fortune.

Does Healthy Food Cost More?

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My first instinct is to say that it does cost more to eat healthy. The question isn’t as simple as it may seem though. You can look at the cost per calorie of different types of food and see that 100 calories from celery or broccoli is a lot more expensive than 100 calories from a candy bar or potato chips. It is easy to categorize candy bars or broccoli as healthy or unhealthy but many foods are harder to categorize.

Most people don’t eat exclusively healthy food or unhealthy food. You can’t just compare the food budget of a person who eats healthy food and a person who eats junk food and conclude which diet cost more. There are wide variations in the budgets of people who eat healthy or unhealthy. Some healthy food eaters may only eat organic produce from a botique farm while another healthy food eater might get most of their vegetables from a low cost supermarket. Some unhealthy eaters might eat mostly pasta and sandwiches while others eat mostly ready to eat convenience foods. One blogger insists that fresh food is cheaper than processed food and supports her argument by stating that her food budget is lower than her friends who buy processed food. A grocery list posted on her site though includes cereal, peanut butter, canned meat, mac and cheese, and cheese puffs. I would consider all of those to be processed foods rather than fresh food. It is clear that different people have different ideas of what is fresh or healthy food.

My food budget has been about $100-$125 for many years. This consist of both groceries and fast food and the food would mostly be considered unhealthy. This food budget is lower than what most people spend on healthy food. It is also lower than what most people spend on unhealthy food so you can’t really draw a conclusion from just my food expenditures. I think that it does cost a little more to eat healthy. That being said I believe that I could eat a healthy diet on a $100-$125 food budget with some careful planning.

Even if healthy food does cost a little more I doubt that is the reason people don’t eat healthy food. I think most people eat unhealthy food because they like it and it is what they are used to eating, not because it is cheaper. What do you think?

Working, Blogging and Other Stuff

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I don’t know how people who work full-time and still manage to get several quality blog posts up every week. My hat is off to those of you who do that. My job is physically easy and mentally easy yet I’m still exhausted at the end of the day and don’t want to do anything but rest when I get home. I don’t have the mental energy to do any research for a blog post or to even think too much. The best I can do is just dump what is on the top of my head like I’m doing now.

There is only one more week at the job. I’m looking forward to having free time again. I’m hoping to make good use of it. This current job is very boring but it is easy and pays well so I’m hoping I’ll get future assignments at this job. My employers are very laid back and let us listen to music or podcasts while we’re working. And I manage to sneak in a little blog reading on my cell phone as well. I really shouldn’t be complaining about this job.

One of the reasons I’m so tired at the end of the day might be because I am so out of shape. I do plan on hiking again once my job is complete. This time I’m going to hike in Missouri. This will keep my cost down. Also, it will allow me to easily come home for a couple days if I want a break. I’ll post more details about this hike once I’m actually hiking.

For those bloggers out there who work full-time and still manage to regularly blog, how do you do it? I’d love to hear any tips or suggestions.

Maxed Out My 2013 IRA

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$25 BonusIt will actually be a few days until I have maxed out my IRA for the 2013 year since I have to wait for my deposit to clear. The money is on the way though so I’m counting the IRA as maxed out now. I also made the maximum IRA contributions for 2012 with the bulk of those contributions being made this year since you have until April 15th of the following year to make IRA contributions for the current year. This is the first time I’ve ever maxed out my IRA two years in a row. I’ve actually only made the maximum IRA contribution once before and that was when the maximum was only $2,000. The max contribution now is $5500 for taxpayers under 50. I wish I would have been maxing out my IRA in years past, but most years I didn’t have the income to do that. It is better late than never.

I actually have both a traditional IRA and a Roth IRA. Even though I have two IRAs the maximum contribution is still only $5500. I put the bulk of my contribution into the traditional IRA. My theory is that it is better to efile and take the tax break now than gamble on it still being around later.

Now that I have maxed out my IRA I am thinking about opening a solo 401k to put away even more money. Before I do that though I am going to build up my cash savings. I would like to have more of my savings held outside of retirement accounts so that I can access it quickly and without penalty if needed.

July Savings Rate – 10.46%

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July was not a great month for savings. My SWR slightly decreased to 58.13% from 59.41% the month before. It was an improvement, but I’m not seeing the big changes that I had earlier this year.  My expenses should be a little lower again this month which will help.  The biggest help will be the fact that I’m working a job that pays decent money which will allow me to save aggressively again.

My goal is to save 50% of my income each month and I didn’t come close to meeting that goal in July. I made $955.36 and managed to save $100. That amounted to a 10.46% savings rate. The main reason for the low savings rate was the low income.  I need to save a lot more than 50% of my income this month to keep my overall savings rate at over 50% for the year since there will likely be at least a couple more low earning months this year.

The 4% SWR translates into having 25x your annual expenses in savings or 300 months of expenses in savings. I have 20.40 months of living expenses saved now. That is just a tiny bit higher than the month before and still below the 24 months of savings I had earlier this year.  I expect to save a lot of money this month so the SWR and months of living expenses saved should improve quite a bit.