As you approach your senior years you will want to get your personal and financial affairs in order making sure that if you die before expected your estate is prepared for your heirs.

Having your affairs in order entails a lot of different items. You will want to make sure your debts are taken care of and your investments are in order.

You will want to make sure your insurance policies, stock portfolio and all banking financial information is safely put away and the executor of your will knows where to easily locate the information when needed.

You may want to up date your will so there will be no issues or arguments with your heirs as to what your wishes were at the time of your death.

When considering your final arrangements you will want to make arrangements for your funeral and burial. You will want to purchase a burial plot, casket and other funeral services in advance this is helpful in two ways.

By purchasing everything in advance you will be certain your final wishes are carried out exactly as you wanted them to be. You will be able to purchase the casket you want to be laid to rest in or if you desire to be cremated you will be able to make the necessary arrangements. You will be able to prepay for all burial costs and know for certain where you will be laid to rest you will have a peace of mind knowing this is taken care of before hand.

By taking care of the matters when you have a sound mind you will not have to put the burden on your children to make all of the decisions when they are emotionally distressed. Funeral homes do provide a valuable service but on the other hand they are a business that has to work with grieving family members that will have to make very quick decisions.

Emotions run high immediately after a loved one passes away and the funeral home may try to convince your family members to purchase a more elaborate casket and persuade them to have more expensive funeral arrangements then necessary to give you a proper memorial.

Only make your prepaid funeral arrangements if you are certain you will not be moving to another town. Many times senior citizens make the arrangements and a few years later decide to relocate to be closer to their children. When this happens you have a prepaid funeral in a town that will not be your final resting place and only puts more decisions and stress on your children.

Another disadvantage of prepaying for your funeral is the contract you sign is between you and the current owner of the funeral home. In the event the funeral home changes ownership you will not be guaranteed they will honor your contract. If the funeral home disputes the contract your children will have to settle the differences and will only make matters worse instead of being able to provide a nice funeral.

There are options to get some of the decisions taken care of without getting involved with a legal contract with the funeral home that is uncertain if it will be honored at the time of your death.

You will want to visit the funeral home you are considering taking care of your final arrangements. Talk with them and get a written quote on everything you would want to have in your prepay contract. Use this as a blueprint to be included in your will as to your final wishes and discuss this with your heirs to make sure they understand your desires.

This will assure you the casket and services you choose will be known beforehand and they will not have to make any decisions. Also this will give you an idea of how much it is going to cost. You may want to start putting money in a special account to be used for the your burial expenses.

This prevents your family from worrying about covering the costs and allows them to use the money you have set aside with your final wishes taken care of when the time comes.

With your blueprint you will be able to specify in your will your exact instructions to the executor and to your heirs to make sure your wishes are followed through.

You may want to give a copy of the blueprint to your children to take to the funeral home assuring they will only purchase the items you desired. This will prevent them to not be persuaded by the skilled funeral salesman pulling on their emotions when they are experiencing tremendous grief.

Visit Low Income Senior Apartments For more helpful senior-related articles, especially those involving senior subsidized housing.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 24th, 2011 at 11:44 pm and is filed under Family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.