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Most families make these in the order that feels urgent rather than the order that serves them. This is the order that serves them, and it is the spine of the Funeral Planning Field Guide above.

1. Burial or cremation. The first fork, and almost every other decision flows from it. Cremation costs roughly half what burial costs nationally. Neither is more respectful than the other.
2. Service type. A full traditional funeral with viewing and procession, a small graveside service, a memorial weeks later, or direct cremation or direct burial with the gathering held on your own timeline. This is the decision that most determines what the funeral home charges, because the basic services fee scales with how involved they are.
3. Casket or urn. Funeral home markups often run 200 to 500 percent above wholesale. Federal law guarantees your right to bring your own from any source with no handling fee.
4. Cemetery, marker, or final resting place. For burial: plot, marker, and the opening, closing and perpetual care fees. For cremation the tree is wider, and cremated remains can wait indefinitely while you decide.
5. Memorial page and announcement. Obituary alone, or a dedicated memorial page where people share stories and photos. Many families add a fundraising page when costs are tight.
6. Estate and paperwork. Death certificates, accounts, beneficiaries, probate, taxes, the will, Social Security, the life insurance claim. Most families need 10 to 15 certified death certificates from the start, and estate work usually unfolds across the first 90 days.
7. Pre-planning for what comes next. The one that comes later, when you have the bandwidth. It locks in today’s prices and takes the decision load off the next person in your family.

One rule runs through all seven: do not commit on the spot. Funeral directors are trained to ask for decisions while you are still in shock. Ask for the General Price List, take it home, compare against one other funeral home, and come back tomorrow. A reputable funeral home will respect that completely.

Every funeral home that arranges or conducts funerals in the United States must honor each of these. The rule covers traditional funerals, direct cremation, immediate burial and pre-need arrangements. It does not cover third-party casket and monument dealers, or cemeteries with no funeral home on site.

1. Itemized General Price List, on request, in person, free. The funeral home must hand you a written itemized copy the moment you arrive, before any arrangement conversation begins. You keep it. They cannot charge you for it or ask for it back.
2. Telephone price disclosure on request. If you call and ask for prices they must give them, and you do not have to give your name, address or phone number first. You can shop every funeral home in your area without setting foot in one.
3. Casket Price List in writing before the casket room. Before they walk you into the display area you get a written list of every casket and its price, including the least expensive options, which are often the ones not on the floor. Ask for them by name.
4. Outer Burial Container Price List in writing. Vaults and grave liners are outer burial containers. No state law requires them. Cemeteries sometimes do, and the cemetery may sell them cheaper than the funeral home.
5. Buy only what you want. No required packages. You select individual goods and services and pay only for what you select. The narrow exception is direct cremation and immediate burial, which may be offered as single integrated packages.
6. Use an outside casket or urn. No handling fee. The most expensive right families fail to invoke. A casket a funeral home sells for $3,500 to $5,000 is typically the same casket a third-party retailer sells for $900 to $1,800. They cannot refuse it, cannot charge a handling fee, and cannot require you to be there when it arrives.
7. Use an alternative container for direct cremation. No law anywhere requires a casket for direct cremation. Unfinished wood, pressed wood, fiberboard and cardboard are all acceptable, and they cost a fraction of the cheapest casket.
8. Make arrangements without embalming. No state law requires routine embalming. Most states allow refrigeration instead when a body is held more than 24 hours. If you are told embalming is required by law, ask which statute, then check it with your state funeral board.
9. Written disclosure of any legal requirement. If they claim a casket, vault, embalming or anything else is required by a law, ordinance, cemetery rule or crematory rule, they must write the specific requirement on your Statement of Funeral Goods and Services Selected. If they will not write it down, they cannot enforce it.
10. Written itemized statement before any payment. Before you pay a dollar you get the Statement of Funeral Goods and Services Selected, every item, every price, and the total. That is your binding contract.

Exercising these typically saves a family $2,000 to $5,000 on a single funeral. Source: consumer.ftc.gov. The full 21 page guide above carries the scripts for the moment a funeral home pushes back, plus a 50-state regulator directory.