Cost of funeral in Bangkok

[OzMan]

10 hours ago, kingofthemountain said:

i assume your girlfriend doesn't earn her own money so does make sense you send money to her, then she can gives something

for the ceremony

My gf earns more than me, base salary of 800,000 baht plus extras. I also saw the body after a motor cycle accident.

[crazykopite]

A farang friend died and the cost of his funeral was 30,000 baht that included keeping his body in a refrigerated type coffin for 4 or 5 days while he lay in state for cremation as well as paying the monks etc the only thing he didn’t have was the raffle prize at the end with the pink cloakroom tickets maybe a lot of the money is for the raffle and food 

[hotchilli]

20 hours ago, colinneil said:

OzMan 150.000 is not a lot of money for a funeral here.

Recently a Thai friends sister died, it cost the family almost 400.000 baht.

It went on for 6 days, 9 monks each day, feeding dozens of people everyday.

A friends father recently died, they did the whole thing for 30,000

[lopburi3]

4 minutes ago, hotchilli said:

A friends father recently died, they did the whole thing for 30,000

Before or after donations?  As said net cost can be considerably less than gross as in most cases there will be many attendees (family and friends) handing envelopes of cash to help pay.

[kingofthemountain]

5 hours ago, OzMan said:

My gf earns more than me, base salary of 800,000 baht plus extras. I also saw the body after a motor cycle accident.

Then you don't have to send anything

that wasn't someone from your family nor one of your friends

 

base salary 800k\monhtly plus extra?

holy c o w i wonder how you guys find and manage to

be in couple with all these Thai millionnaires, reading

this forum it seems all the thai wifes\gf earn more than 

their western husband\bf

 

amazing Thailand

Edited October 9, 2020 by kingofthemountain

[hotchilli]

16 hours ago, kingofthemountain said:

feel free to send 5000 to

10 000 baths (It depends on your possibilities) you should then be one of the biggest contributors to the party

What would they do with baths, sell them afterwards?

[lopburi3]

15 minutes ago, kingofthemountain said:

base salary 800k\monhtly plus extra?

My guess would be annual salary rather than monthly - but in any case there should not be any normal expectation for BF to donate.  If he feels compelled perhaps half of the amount GF puts into envelope as a shared donation.

[hotchilli]

1 hour ago, lopburi3 said:

Before or after donations?  As said net cost can be considerably less than gross as in most cases there will be many attendees (family and friends) handing envelopes of cash to help pay.

Total cost was 30,000 baht before donations, which didn't add up to much. most came for a free feed and left nothing.

That included the coffin, monks for one service, flowers and cremation, food was minimal as was booze.

[lopburi3]

17 minutes ago, hotchilli said:

Total cost was 30,000 baht before donations, which didn't add up to much. most came for a free feed and left nothing.

Take it was more village rather than extended family - family close friends will normally leave something as what goes around comes around and memories are long.

Edited October 9, 2020 by lopburi3

[OzMan]

42 minutes ago, kingofthemountain said:

base salary 800k\monhtly plus extra?

800k/yearly.

[billd766]

13 hours ago, kingofthemountain said:

As i said there is no any reason for you to pay a different price from the others, except if they are used to milking you at every occasion they have.

And i don't see any valid reason for your wife to accept it except one

(See at the end of my post)

 

It's a communitary system based on the fact that everyone  rich or poor, young or old, pay the same and the amount is low to be sure everybody can pay it with no problem including the poorest in the village. 

 

It's why i was surprised for your 150 bahts\each

for a family of 4, usual in the villages, it's 600 bahts, an enormous amount of money for most of the Thais in a rural area. A thai laborer in the field earn 300 bath\day

600 bahts is 2 days of work. 8 hours of each day, when there is work.

 

The ''normal'' amount asked by the puyaban for this scheme is usually around 20\50bahts\each, it sounds like  someone as just added ''100'' of fee to the collect for you and your son, plus 150 for you, it's a 350 baths ''tax''

 

Do you pay yourself to the collector or you give the money to your Thai wife and she

does the payement? Have you seen the book where all the names are noted beside with

the amount of money? Or you prefer not to bother with it?

If truth be known I am not really rhat bothered. Stuff like that I tend to leave for my wife to deal with

[billd766]

One odd thing struck me a while ago.

 

Mostly us farangs are several sizes larger and quite a few kg heavier than Thais so a standard Thai coffin is unlikely to fit us. I made a general enquiry in the big village and a farang sized coffin is about 8,000 baht.

 

So do you go ahead and order one now, or wait until you actually get close to needing it?

[dddave]

22 hours ago, Morakot said:

 

Not unusual at all and possibly not on the extravagant side.

 

Funeral costs are normally shared. People (who attend) normally give money towards the cost. 1,000-2,000 THB is probably fine for a friend's relative.

 

It's reciprocal. You should definitely give, if these friends attended (and gave money at) a wedding or funeral on your family's side.

Also, many rural Thais pay into insurance policies for just this eventuality.

 

My former GF's mother paid into a "Death Insurance" policy for years.  She said many times that she didn't want to cause her children to go into debt financing her funeral. 

I was skeptical but when she died, the company paid out the full policy amount within days, about B300,000.  This was in rural Khon Kaen.

 

What really surprised me was when her five often quarreling offspring unanimously agreed without any argument to spent 200K of it on her funeral and give the remaining 100K to the local temple for some needed repairs.   They gave her a great send-off with the requisite nine monks and unending platters of food for the many attendees.  

Edited October 9, 2020 by dddave

[BTB1977]

A farang friend of mine past away last year.  His wife said about 100,000 baht. 30,000 was the cost of the autopsy. Body sent to BKK where they do them.  Than there was a set price for the cremation.  And I think 10,000 a day for every day he laid in rest at the temple.  I believe he was at the temple 3 days . There was not big ceremony.  Just some flowers that people donated.  No food or drink as some mentioned. 

[NancyL]

I've been to several funerals at McKean Hospital in Chiang Mai where they have their own crematorium and can do a nice funeral service for their expat patients.  It's always interesting to see the reaction of Thai visitors when the whole service is done in less than an hour at a cost of less than 25,000 baht.  Depending on what the deceased wanted, it usually includes singing of some hymns or songs, reading of some remarks from overseas family/friends, remarks from some guests, a little scripture reading and eating Euro cake and drinking apple juice while we watch the smoke coming out of the chimney.  

[OzMan]

Thanks everyone. I did not offer to contribute after a few hints and the subject was not raised again.

[suhoaswhas]

On 10/8/2020 at 12:29 PM, colinneil said:

OzMan 150.000 is not a lot of money for a funeral here.

Recently a Thai friends sister died, it cost the family almost 400.000 baht.

It went on for 6 days, 9 monks each day, feeding dozens of people everyday.

 

 

How can people be so ridiculous wit the dead instead of spending the money for people who are still alive ?

 

So what can be the minimum cost, let's say for myself, if I just want to be burn and don't want any idiot party with more idiots drinking and eating of my corpse ?

 

And if Thai girlfriend mother dies, how much usually Thai kids pay for the funerals ?

 

 

 

[suhoaswhas]

On 10/8/2020 at 3:14 PM, Sheryl said:

 

i have actually given more than that for cases where I was really close to the family. But never more than 5,000 - 10,000 max even for Bangkok funeral.

 

As others have noted, the cost depends entirely on how elaborate the family wants to make it (she may be wanting you to enable them to have something otherwise above their means) and much of the cost is recouped from donations made by those who attend, similiar in that respect to weddings here.

A good reason not to be close to any Thai !