Vernon Hale · Funeral Director, Southern Ohio

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I. Choose your copy

One book for the table. One for the kitchen drawer.

The Manual tells you what to do when the phone rings. The Family Folder makes sure your children never have to guess what you wanted. Most folks take both.

Best value · both books

Both books · the whole plan

The Manual + The Family Folder

Know your rights at the table, and leave your wishes in writing so nobody signs through tears.

$56~~$94~~

Both books for less than buying the two apart

The Funeral Savings Manual: 935 pages, 113 chapters
The Family Folder: 110 printable fill-in pages
All five worksheets and the Rights Cheat Sheet
Lifetime updates · one payment, yours to keep

Get both books, $56

Instant download · 30-day money-back guarantee

The Manual · on its own

The Funeral Savings Manual

Every charge you can refuse, from the first phone call to the headstone.

$37~~$67~~

Launch price · save $30

935-page PDF, 113 chapters in 16 parts
The First 48 Hours Road Map and the Question Script
Price-List Line Checker and chain-of-custody checklist

Get the Manual, $37

Instant download · Yours to keep

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II.

What happens at the table

Nobody has to lie to you. The plainest choices just aren't shown first.

Most families walk into a funeral home a few hours after the worst phone call of their lives. They're tired, they're grieving, and they're scared of doing it wrong. Before they leave the building they've signed for thousands of dollars.

The national median for a funeral with a viewing and burial is $8,300, and $6,280 for one with cremation, and that's before the cemetery sends its own bill (National Funeral Directors Association, 2023). Since 1984 a federal rule has put you in charge of that bill. The funeral home has to hand you a price list, and you can turn down nearly every line on it. Hardly anyone is told that until they ask.

Nobody should have to sign through tears.

That's the whole reason this book exists. Have the answers on the kitchen table before anybody slides a contract across the desk.

III.

The Manual

935 pages. Everything I'd tell you if you sat across my desk the night before.

It's the whole road from the first phone call to the headstone, in plain words: who to call first, the federal Funeral Rule and the lines it lets you refuse, the arrangement table, caskets, embalming, the crematory, direct cremation, urns and ashes, the cemetery bill, headstones, the service, veterans' benefits, planning ahead, the paperwork afterward and the hard cases.

Every chapter answers one question folks brought me, at the table, at church or at the diner. What really happens, what it costs, what you can turn down, and what to say.

It isn't a book about funeral manners. It's the book you want on the kitchen table before anyone signs anything.

The price listThe paper the law says they must hand you, and how to read it line by line: keep, refuse or buy elsewhere.

What really happensThe body, the casket, the cremation chamber, the urn. Plainly and respectfully, the way I'd explain it to my own family.

Your rightsWhat federal law guarantees you in every state, and how to tell a law from a cemetery rule from a sales line.

The exact wordsWhat to say on the first call, at the arrangement table and before your pen touches the contract.

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IV. What's inside

Sixteen parts, from the first call to the grave.

Every line below is a question a family once asked me. The book answers each one in full.

Part I

The First Phone Call

The first 48 hours, when the most expensive yeses get said

The sentence on the first call that stops an embalming charge
Hospital or nursing home death: you pick the funeral home, not the staff
The prices they must tell you over the phone, even at midnight

Part II

The Federal Rule That Puts You in Charge

The 1984 Funeral Rule most families never hear about

The one fee you can't refuse, and every line you can
Buy the casket anywhere: the rule that bans the handling fee
When the package price costs more than the pieces

Part III

Sitting at the Arrangement Table

How to walk out paying only for what you chose

The one person to bring with you to the table
“What would Mom have wanted?” The sentence that sells upgrades
Five contract lines to read twice before you sign

Part IV

What Really Happens Inside the Casket

The question I was asked most

What a “sealed” casket really does, and what the rubber gasket buys you
Ordering a casket online without it arriving late
The rental casket: a full viewing without buying a casket to burn

Part V

Embalming: When You Can Say No

Seeing your person one last time without paying for what you don't need

Most deaths don't require embalming: how to check your state
Can embalming fluid leak? The plain answer
A private family goodbye for a fraction of a public viewing

Part VI

What Really Happens at the Crematory

From the authorization form to the box on the bureau

Is it really my mother? The ID disc and the chain of custody
Pacemakers out, rings off: what must be removed first
Who really does the cremation, and the markup behind it

Part VII

The Choices That Skip Most of the Bill

Direct cremation, immediate burial and the other lower-cost roads

Cremation never requires a casket: the plain box the law guarantees
Five checks before you pay a cremation society or online provider
Body donation: when it's free and why it can be refused

Part VIII

Urns, Ashes and Where They Can Go

The plastic box, the showroom urn and every lawful place for what's left

The online urn and the showroom urn hold the same ashes
Scattering legally: your yard, public land and three miles out to sea
Flying home with ashes through airport security

Part IX

The Cemetery Bill Nobody Counts

The second bill, left out of the national median

Opening and closing the grave: the fee nobody mentions until the end
Vaults and grave liners: a cemetery rule, not a law
Selling the plot you'll never use

Part X

Headstones

The last and most overpriced purchase

Why you buy the stone anywhere but the cemetery office
The free headstone every eligible veteran has earned
Getting the words right so you never buy a second stone

Part XI

A Good Service at a Fair Price

The goodbye that matters, without the lines that don't

The cash-advance markup they must tell you about
Programs, flowers and slideshows the family can make for almost nothing
Hearse, limousine and procession: the lines easiest to drop

Part XII

The Money Families Leave on the Table

Veterans' honors, benefits and payments nobody mentions

The flag and Taps cost nothing: how to request military honors
The $255 Social Security payment, and why it never goes to the funeral home
Lodge, union, employer and church benefits hiding in old papers

Part XIII

Planning Ahead Without Being Sold

Sparing your children the arrangement table

Pre-plan without prepaying: write it down and pay nothing
Prepaid plans: where your money sits if the home is sold
When a savings account beats final expense insurance

Part XIV

The Paperwork After, in Order

The weeks after, one call at a time

How many death certificates you really need
Bills after a death: what the family does not owe
Jewelry and personal effects: get the inventory signed

Part XV

The Hard Cases

Babies, accidents, family disputes and moves

When a child dies: the charges many homes reduce or waive
Blended families: who has the legal right to decide
Coroner's cases: why a body is held and how long release takes

Part XVI

What I Saw in Thirty-Eight Years

Honest answers to the questions I got at church and the diner

The most expensive mistakes families make, ranked
Funeral home mistakes I saw, and the simple checks that catch them
My own plan: what I've put in writing for my children

At the back: the 25 Arrangement-Table Rules, funeral words in plain English, the First 48 Hours checklist, the Price-List Line Checker, and where families buy caskets, urns and markers for less.

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❦

V. Plainly, with pictures

The things families never get to see

A funeral home General Price List on a wooden table — The General Price List: the paper to ask for before anything else.

A stainless steel crematory identification disc — The ID disc that stays with your person through the cremation.

A plain steel casket in its shipping carton on a dolly — A casket bought outside the funeral home. The law says they must accept it.

A manila envelope with a wedding band and a wristwatch — Rings and keepsakes: what must come home, and the inventory you sign.

An open three-ring binder on a kitchen table beside a cup of coffee

VI. The second book

So your children never sit at that table guessing.

The hardest arrangements I ever made weren't the expensive ones. They were the ones where a son and a daughter sat across from me and couldn't agree on what their mother wanted, because she never wrote it down.

The Family Folder is 110 printable pages you fill in by hand: burial or cremation and what you don't want spent, your hymns and readings and who speaks, where the will, the deed and the insurance papers are, who to call in order, your veterans' papers, your passwords, who gets the rings and the keepsakes, letters to your children, even the obituary you'd want.

Fill it in this month, tell one person where it is, and the night the phone rings your family will have your own words in front of them. It's a planner, not a legal will.

110 printable fill-in pages, 14 sections
Print it once, or as many copies as you need

Get both books, $56$94

Both books in one order · Instant download · 30-day money-back guarantee

Vernon Hale, funeral director and embalmer

VII.

A note from the author

I grew up above a funeral home.

My father opened ours in a small town in southern Ohio in 1961. We lived upstairs. I was helping with removals as a teenager, long before I understood what my father was really doing for those families. I earned my mortuary science license in my twenties and ran the home myself for 38 years.

In that time I directed close to 6,000 funerals: farmers and schoolteachers, veterans, babies, people I sat next to in church on Sunday, and more than one family I served across three generations. I've embalmed, dressed and casketed the people of my town. I've stood in the crematory. I've sat at the arrangement table with widows at two in the morning, and I've seen every upsell and every mistake a grieving family can make.

I sold the business a few years back. I still drop in to help the new owners, but I don't sell anything anymore, so I can say plainly what the industry tends to leave out. The questions never stopped, at church, at the diner, on the phone from old neighbors. This book is my answer to all of them, written down in one place, now, while I can still sit and write it.

“Ask for the price list before you ask for anything else. It's the one paper that puts you in charge.”

I'm no lawyer. I just sat on the other side of that desk for thirty-eight years.

Vernon HaleFuneral director and embalmer · Southern Ohio

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VIII. Everything you get

The Funeral Savings Manual

One payment. Instant download. Yours to keep, print and share with your family.

The Funeral Savings Manual: 935 pages, 113 chapters, 16 parts~~$67~~
The First 48 Hours Road Map: who to call, in what order~~$19~~
The Arrangement-Table Question Script, word for word~~$19~~
The Price-List Line Checker: keep, refuse or buy elsewhere~~$17~~
Your Rights Cheat Sheet: the Funeral Rule on one page~~$12~~
The Cremation Chain-of-Custody Checklist~~$12~~
Lifetime updates~~$19~~
Total value~~$165~~
Add The Family Folder: 110 fill-in pages for your wishes and papers~~$27~~
Both books, total value~~$192~~

You pay today$37~~$67~~

🔒 Launch price · save $30

Get the Manual, $37 Or get both books, $56

Secure checkout · PDF for phone, tablet or computer, or to print · Instant email delivery

30Days

Read it for thirty days.

Read the Manual for a full 30 days. If it isn't what you hoped for, send one email and you get every penny back. No questions, no hard feelings. Some folks expect a printed book in the mail. This is a book you download, and if that isn't for you, the refund is yours.

❦

IX. Questions folks ask me

Before you decide

I'm not much for computers. Can I still read it?

Yes. After you pay, the book comes to your email with one button to download it. You can read it on a phone, a tablet or a computer and make the letters as big as you like. Or have a grandchild print the chapters you need and keep them in a binder by the phone. If you get stuck, reply to the email and it comes to me.

Is this a printed book?

No. It's a PDF you download right after checkout. Nothing comes in the mail, so there's no shipping and no waiting.

Can I buy it for my mom or dad?

You can. Buy it with your own email, then forward the download or print it for them. A lot of families read it together before anybody has to make a phone call.

Money's tight right now. Is it worth it?

That's exactly who I wrote it for. Turning down one line you didn't need, like embalming for a direct cremation or a casket you'd never see again, saves far more than the book costs. And if it isn't for you, you have 30 days to get every penny back.

Nobody has died. Is it too early?

That's the best time. Families who read it before the phone rings make calmer and cheaper choices. Part XIII and The Family Folder are about planning ahead without being sold anything.

Someone just died. Where do I start?

I'm sorry. Start with Part I and the First 48 Hours Road Map. They tell you what has to happen now and what can wait, so you never have to sign anything tonight.

Does it apply in my state?

The federal Funeral Rule covers every funeral home in the United States, and the book explains it in full. Embalming, cemetery and scattering rules differ by state, and the book shows you how to check yours before you decide.

Is this against funeral homes?

No. I ran one for 38 years, and many funeral directors are good, honest people. The book helps you pay for what you choose, ask the right questions and know your rights, whoever you sit across from.

Is it legal advice?

No. It's a plain guide from a funeral director's experience, built on the published federal rules. For an estate or a family dispute, the book tells you when to call a lawyer.

I'm outside the United States. Will it help?

The laws in the book are American. What happens to the body, the questions to ask and the mistakes to avoid are the same everywhere, but check your own country's rules.

What if it isn't for me?

Email within 30 days and you get a full refund.

Every line on the $8,300 funeral bill you can say no to. Written down for your family.

One book for the table. One for the kitchen drawer.

The Manual + The Family Folder

The Funeral Savings Manual

Nobody has to lie to you. The plainest choices just aren't shown first.

935 pages. Everything I'd tell you if you sat across my desk the night before.

Sixteen parts, from the first call to the grave.

The First Phone Call

The Federal Rule That Puts You in Charge

Sitting at the Arrangement Table

What Really Happens Inside the Casket

Embalming: When You Can Say No

What Really Happens at the Crematory

The Choices That Skip Most of the Bill

Urns, Ashes and Where They Can Go

The Cemetery Bill Nobody Counts

Headstones

A Good Service at a Fair Price

The Money Families Leave on the Table

Planning Ahead Without Being Sold

The Paperwork After, in Order

The Hard Cases

What I Saw in Thirty-Eight Years

The things families never get to see

So your children never sit at that table guessing.

I grew up above a funeral home.

The Funeral Savings Manual

Read it for thirty days.

Before you decide

Have it on the kitchen table before the phone rings.

The Funeral Savings Manual + The Family Folder

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Choose your order