Why Do People Spend On Funerals?

It is easy to decipher why we spend on those alive, including ourselves. Benefits are tangible and we can often see for ourselves how we benefit from the goods or services we spend on ourselves or on those alive.

Understanding why people would spend on the dead - well that takes a bit of digging. The benefits do not accrue to the spender directly in this case but to the person who has departed this world. Here are some reasons why people spend on funerals:

1. They want to be filial
Chinese religions like Buddhism and Taoism place a lot of emphasis on being filial and that applies even to the afterlife. Funerals are in a way the last event of any person in this earthly realm and it is believed that whatever done during this critical period would affect the soul of the decedent after death. Some of us really just want the best for our loved ones and are willing to sacrifice monetary wealth for them.

2. To reduce their own guilt
Not all of us have a healthy relationship with the person who passed on when he or she is alive and guilt might start consuming us from within when we start to realise that we have not treated them the best possible way while alive. This is especially so if we were made the donee of that person’s lasting power of attorney where supposedly we are supposed to spend their money in ways that improve their welfare but we might not have done so. Parents and children often have this complicated love-hate relationship where, as children we might bear some resentment towards our own parents because of how we we brought up by them. This causes intense guilt when the person whom we have had such mixed feelings passed on and we do not yet understand what we truly feel. In order to try and make ourselves better or compensate for not doing better, we try to convince ourselves that spending on the funeral would make up for what we did not do when the person was alive.

3. To maintain face value (面子）
In Singapore, majority of the people place a lot of emphasis on face value. Most of the opulent things we do is to impress people more than anything else. Despite whether or not we have the real material wealth to support our lifestyle decisions, we put up a front that we are doing a lot better than we are and want others to think well of us. Instead of focusing on making funerals a solemn meaningful event, it becomes more like a show and display of our opulence by the grandiosity of how the death is processed.

4. To ensure good luck for future descendants
It is believed that how the status of the afterlife of a deceased is, including where the deceased is buried or where its ashes are placed will affect the lives of future descendants. This is why some places like Nirvana places a lot of emphasis on fengshui - the five elements involved and why family members are willing to spend exorbitant sums ( of at least 10 grand or more) on a space for the placement of ashes. In Singapore, these niches purchased are for a limited leasehold so do not forget to calculate how much it is for a year before committing to purchasing one.

5. There is no reference as to how much should be spent on a funeral in Singapore
In Singapore, the same items quoted by us can cost twice or even more by another company. There is simply no regulations or guidelines as to how much should be charged for a funeral. For someone facing a loss of someone they love unexpectedly, making decisions and choosing vendors (funeral companies) to work with might not be a top priority. As such, family members just accept the prices quoted and pay for whatever they think should be necessary when it might not be the case. This is why at Harmony Funeral Care, we have always advocated for family members to plan in advance for the inevitable. Death has no timing and it is always better to be prepared than not. Having information like pricing and others in advance would allow you the privilege to not be paying excessively when time comes and to budget for the worse case scenarios possible.