Cost Of Thai Funeral

[longstebe]

The Father-in-law passed away recently.

As I am married to the youngest daughter I'm just hopeing nobody takes advantage of her (us) when it comes to paying for everything.

Her sister doesn't have a pot to p!ss in and that leaves only her brother to help with the costs.

I think its going to end up about 100,000 bht.

The wife says her brother has helped out with half of it and us the other half.

Does this sound pretty normal?

And what is the money for?

[ballbreaker]

Pay what you feel you can afford and won't miss and let them come up with the rest.

[jerrylee]

The Father-in-law passed away recently.

As I am married to the youngest daughter I'm just hopeing nobody takes advantage of her (us) when it comes to paying for everything.

Her sister doesn't have a pot to p!ss in and that leaves only her brother to help with the costs.

I think its going to end up about 100,000 bht.

The wife says her brother has helped out with half of it and us the other half.

Does this sound pretty normal?

And what is the money for?

some people spends little and just let off a few rockets, at the village temple,

but some put up a big feast and invite the whole village to attend this "mor lum" concert

and lots of buddhist ceremonys

[BigSnake]

100,000 if you want to have a fancy Funeral, but in reality you can have a decent funeral for less than 20,000, it just that in their moments of grief some family get carry away and over spend with is ok in my book if they can afford it.

[metisdead]

The wife's mom passed away in middle April. When you ask what's the money for, what money are you referring to? Usually there is a box or something where people drop and envelope with an offering of money inside the envelope. That money usually gets given to the monks at each time the monks come to do a service. As for the other costs, depends how many pigs get butchered and all the other foods and drinks that are "bought" and then have to be paid once the service is completely over. And yes, 100K sounds about right. I left it up to the wife and her sisters and brother to settle it up, I was prepared to help, but they managed to cover it all.

[Chinavet]

Condolences to the family. I was supposed to be off to another funeral tonight, but the wife found out the old guy won't be cremated till next week, so we 'have time' to call and pay our respects. My wife says costs typically range is Baht 100,000 - 15,000, depends on many things that we probably should not even attempt to fathom. Age, respect, wealth (family) etc.

Our village has a 'scheme', whereby all participating families contribute Baht 20 per household. Money collected and given to attending monks by mourners is a separate issue, I am sure 'the family' would also have a reasonably fixed sum that should be given to the monks. Then there seems to be another level of donation over and above the Baht 20 group, expected from perceived wealthier or more powerful mourners. The actual amount received as contributions could be any percentage of the outlay, probably a good indicator of the real esteem of the deceased.

I have been to funerals that provide alcohol and those that don't. Food volume and quality varies. Bottom line, if the brother is willing to carry 50%, it's probably a fair expectation for you and your wife to match it.

[Texpat]

Find out if there is anything being left from the deceased to the survivors.

I paid for my fil's funeral several years ago. Four brothers claimed they had nothing and couldn't help.

I found out a year later that the dead father left about 30K to each of them -- nothing to my wife though.

Nice, eh?

[OZEMADE]

Just did a Buddist funeral for a mate of mine at Phuket approx B10,000. Took 5 days of mourning before they cremated him.

[chiang mai]

I paid for the funeral of my better half's father two years ago. A poor village, a poor family but a two and a half day event for friends family and neighbors cost around Baht 60k - it was a good experience for me, it served its purpose and I would not be surprised that today, the same party costs 100k. I say, go for it, participate and judge later whether the money was well spent.

[Guemlum]

I have recently carried out my Thai wife's funeral and all in all it cost me about 150,000 baht. 1 year earlier I had attended my father-in-laws funeral, which again cost around the same amount. I could have done things cheaper but I wanted to do things as traditional as possible and as similar to her fathers funeral.

This included 6 days of mourning where Monks visited the home each evening, food for guests that came each evening, flowers and photos on show at the temple, the cost of the cremation including 30+ monks, a brass band (don't quite know what that was all about) hire of boat to scatter my wife's ashes in the Mekong river, and a party including morlam at the family home. As I mentioned, her family said that not all of it was neccesary, but I wanted to do this for my wife and they were happy to accept whatever I wanted to do. My sister-in-law also kept a very detailed book with all running costs breaking things down to show me where money was being spent. We also received money from guests totalling about 50,000 baht.

Extra's included flights from the UK, the Funeral directors used in the UK, repatriation company based in London which included my wife's flight, funeral directors based in Bangkok...total costs about 7000 GBP

Hope this helps and can recommend companies involved.

Guemlum

[longstebe]

Thanks boys

Its really tough at the momoent.Not being there to comfort the wife is my main issue.

Also not being able to see where the money is going.

Thanks for the input though.

[prakhonchai nick]

100-150,000 would seem to be about right especially if alcohol is present. Alcohol is now seen less often at funerals, with the knock-on effect that less unwelcome "scroungers" attend

Some of this cash layout will be recouped from donations received from guests. Never heard of these donations being given to the monks

Most village people have adopted their own scale of "fees" for the monks, and in my locality it is 300bt per monk per day with 1000bt going to the senior monk. Cremation fees on top.

As has been said, someone will keep a record of all donations received. This is used as a guide whenever the bereaved family attend another function (regardless of whether it's a funeral, wedding, house blessing or becoming a monk for a short period), and it is expected that the new donation will either match the previous one or be 10% more. This does cause problems especially for the poor. They are "expected" to match the donation received from a wealthy contributor, when the tables are reversed, even if its not a like for like event

[Chaimai]

Chipped into 3 family funerals so far - wife's 2 year old son, her younger sister and her father.

Sounds about in the ballpark at 100.000 baht. Also depends if you have stupa in temple grounds etc.

The record keeping is immaculate and 'the book' records all income and expenditure so you can see exactly what comes in and what goes out.

[longstebe]

Chipped into 3 family funerals so far - wife's 2 year old son, her younger sister and her father.

Sounds about in the ballpark at 100.000 baht. Also depends if you have stupa in temple grounds etc.

The record keeping is immaculate and 'the book' records all income and expenditure so you can see exactly what comes in and what goes out.

Sh!t mate. The luck doesn't run in your family.

I hope you don't have to go through anymore.

[torrenova]

It doesn't sound right to me that the begging bowl is handed round for funerals which seem to be way out of line with the income of the deceased or the family. Am I the only one who thinks this ?

If everyone had such lavish expenditure then the country would be more broke than it is at present. If these people haven't got 100k then what do they earn a month ? 10k ? If so, then you cannot spend a whole year's income on a funeral. Something wrong there.

[kenk3z]

Is there any chance the money could be set aside for the purpose of educating the next generation?

Maybe a new tradition needs to be started, a very bad Western one at that...... no fun at all.......

kenk3z

[ClaytonSeymour]

It doesn't sound right to me that the begging bowl is handed round for funerals which seem to be way out of line with the income of the deceased or the family. Am I the only one who thinks this ?

I agree with you entirely.