Funeral Homes Advertising Low Cost Funerals

Since Simple Direct Funerals began life as Purely Cremations you might have noticed a change with other Funeral Homes promotions. I started by advertising a fixed price that clearly showed all the services (which covered everything a family needed for a cremation). This wasn’t the case before I started, when Funeral Homes didn’t advertise their … Read more

Fearing Death

Death is scary – well it can be for many people; even the thought of it. We don’t really like talking about death.  It is foreign and something most people don’t have to deal with often.  However you might be surprised how talkative people can get when the subject comes up when I tell them … Read more

SDF – Being cheaper doesn’t mean being nasty

I’ve said this before – I got into the funeral business because I saw two things I thought I could do better than what was on offer. The first was to reduce the high prices families paid who just wanted a simple straightforward funeral – usually a direct or private cremation.  Before I started Funeral … Read more

Starting a Small Business

I don’t know how many people have started or succeeded in running a small business.  I never thought I would – but here I am – over three years later and still going strong. One of the reasons I started my own business was because the only jobs I could get after being made redundant … Read more

Personal reflections

My experience with Maori funerals is incredibly limited.  So this is simply some of the things I discovered for myself.  But first I should go back to how I first encountered a funeral.  Like most people it was a grandparent who died when I was around ten years old.  I never saw her and there … Read more

The Cost of Dying

The cost of living is on the news a lot and probably in the minds of many families in New Zealand and also overseas.  The essentials at the supermarket, petrol and most things continue to rise and the government and Reserve Bank seem powerless to stop this trend. And it feels like we have very … Read more

DIY Funerals

Is it possible to do a funeral yourself… well not for yourself, but for someone else – usually a family member? The thought is that there is definite cost saving benefits by doing this and if the funeral is a direct cremation, well how hard can it be? The first thing is that you can … Read more

The year that was 2022

In many ways 2022 flew by. Maybe that’s just old age catching up to me. For the armchair sports fan the woman’s rugby world cup final has to be a highlight.  Also the football world cup final was pretty special too.  Did we have the Olympics?  I can’t remember… In politics I think Labour is … Read more

15 Things Funeral Homes don’t want you to know

15 things Funeral Homes don’t want you to know  1.  Don’t pay in advance for a funeral. Yes, you can pre-plan. But keep the money in a separate bank account. This way you are in complete control of it. You won’t be charged fees – especially if you decide to go elsewhere. 2.  Often funeral … Read more

How much should a funeral cost?

For a long time the cost of a funeral was not something funeral companies promoted much.  There was a simple reason for this – making money.  Without knowing exactly what a funeral costs the family can easily be hit with up-selling and hidden costs.  I’m sure there are many stories of this happening. Even with … Read more

In the beginning…

Simple Direct Funerals started because I wanted to provide families an affordable funeral to those who wanted a direct cremation. Before I started, other funeral businesses were able to charge whatever they wanted for even the most basic of services. Then when we started things changed. They started to lower their prices too. However there … Read more