Struck by how many funerals left loved ones with massive, lingering bills, Fergus Wheeler founded Death Without Debt to teach people how to DIY their own end-of-life services. He talks to Anna Harcourt about cutting costs without losing dignity.
The average funeral costs $13,000. But four in 10 New Zealanders couldn’t access $5000 in an emergency without going into debt, according to the Financial Services Council. With that in mind, Fergus Wheeler founded his volunteer-run organisation which does public workshops and advocates for changes in law and the funeral industry.
It was after his mother’s death in 2019, that Wheeler says he “struck pretty much every institutional and commercial obstacle that was put in the way of the public being empowered to arrange funerals themselves”.
The Funeral Directors Association of New Zealand recently surveyed funeral homes and found a “moderate” funeral with 50 guests costs about $11,700 for a cremation, or $14,300 for a burial.
But Mr Wheeler says the price can soar far higher, with a recent funeral for a friend costing $25,000 for a coffin, cremation and service.
He says people often go into debt, financing a funeral through loan sharks and credit cards.
“Someone I know spent 10 years paying off their husband's funeral. And they had to work weekends for 10 years. So it was a big, big fallout from it. It was a lavish funeral because the church they were in wanted a lavish funeral, so they were encouraged to spend a lot.”
“And then all that support that was there on the day, there was no-one there to help pay the bill.”
Wheeler says there's a culture in New Zealand that you have to “pay your respects, literally”.
“People think that an inexpensive funeral is a ‘cheap’ funeral, meaning taking a shortcut, not memorialising the person who's died. But we give people examples of how you can do really great funerals that give the person who's died the full respect, and that it's not about money. It's not about how much you spend.”
Here are his tips for DIY-ing a funeral:
1. Register the death yourself
There is some essential paperwork, like the cause of death certificate and a cremation certificate, that must be completed by a doctor or nurse practitioner.
But registering the death with Births, Deaths and Marriages can be done by anyone.
There’s a form available on the Department of Internal Affairs website where you fill out information such as the names of the deceased person’s family, their relationships and occupation.
Previously, Wheeler says, it was “virtually impossible to register a death unless you hired a funeral director”.
“We made the form accessible. It took us four years of bashing our head against the brick wall of their bureaucracy. The Department of Internal Affairs switchboard didn't know where it was, it wasn't available on their website. If you emailed them for a copy, they often wouldn't reply, so that was difficult. So we succeeded in getting them to put it up on their website.”
2. Care for the body yourself
You don't have to embalm, says Wheeler. “It’s toxic, and from our point of view, it's unnecessary and barbaric.”
“It's very, very invasive. All the blood goes out, replaced with other fluid. The internal organs are opened up and chemicals pumped into them. It's not something that maintains the dignity of the deceased, in most people's eyes.”
He says there might be occasions where embalming is necessary if you really have to keep the body for a long time.
But “ice is really good” and most people will be fine for three to five days if kept cool.
“Cooling the body swiftly, especially the abdomen and just behind the back of the neck. Just bringing the temperature down and keeping it down.”
3. Gather your own flowers
“You can go around and get wild flowers," says Wheeler. "They all look fantastic.
"When a friend of mine died at 3 o'clock in the morning, we just went around the neighbourhood and picked all the pea flowers and blossoms and yarrow. By the time his daughter arrived about 7 o'clock in the morning, it wasn't a dead man in the bed. It was a dead man in a bed of flowers, and it was just a completely different experience for everyone involved.”
4. Build your own coffin
Providing you have some basic woodwork skills, you can go to a hardware store, buy the wood and put it together, says Wheeler.
“Each crematorium will have specifications, but they're pretty much the same all over the country.”
5. Use your own vehicle as a hearse
A hearse doesn’t need to be something that costs $400 for a trip to the funeral directors, it can just be someone’s van.
“You can transport the body. You don't need any paperwork for that if you're immediate whānau or friends,” says Wheeler.
“So, for example, if you're there when the person died and you were making the funeral arrangements, you're fine to drive with the body. You have to treat the body with respect, make sure it doesn't leak. But that's just common sense.”
6. Organise your own service
You don't have to have a service, but if you do, it doesn’t need to be at a funeral home.
“You can use the tennis club, you can use the church, you can use your home, whatever,” says Wheeler. “You just obviously have to check that a venue is comfortable.”
You also need to check with the council to use public land, and a blessing or karakia may need to be done after a funeral service if it was held on public land or at a public venue.
“But you can talk your way through it with everyone.”
7. Have money upfront
As soon as a bank is notified of your death, they will freeze your accounts.
That means you need to have the money available to trusted friends or family before you die, because even if you’ve made provision for them in your will, it could be six weeks until they’re able to access that money.
“$1500 will do it for your coffin and for your cremation,” says Wheeler.
“To save money, you have to have money ready.”
8. Talk about death
“Just because death's a mystery doesn't mean the practicalities need to be.”
Key things to talk about with your loved ones include whether you want to use a funeral home or have your family make arrangements themselves, cremation or burial, and who’s going to pay for it.
Another important one is having your family know who to invite and how to contact them.
“With cellphones, who is going to know the PIN? How is anyone going to tell whether the Deb in my phone contacts is my ex-girlfriend who I really want to know about the funeral, or is Deb just the woman at the hairdressers?”
Wheeler says he recently got an email from an “incredibly grateful” woman who had attended one of his workshops when her mother was dying.
After talking about it with her mum, the family decided to DIY the funeral for a total cost of $1800.
“They said that because they did it themselves, everyone had something to do. So rather than just sitting around sipping tea, going ‘what do we do?’, everyone had a task. And the family were bonded over it.”
“Dying is not a failure. Just talk about it.”
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