Death has been in the news quite a bit recently.
We’ve had the Hayley Cropper suicide storyline in Coronation Street, attracting two million extra viewers, as well as criticism that it was only used to boost ratings.
Researchers from the University of Bath published a study which found the cost of dying has risen to £7,622 and 100,000 people will struggle to pay for their own funeral this year.
This means the cost of a burial has risen by around 80% over the last decade.
A typical burial or cremation costs £3,456 and around £2,000 is spent on extras, including flowers, a headstone and catering.
The BBC has also been talking about death, highlighting a current trend to use the hashtag #YODO on social media.
This competes with the popular (among teenagers, at least) expression, ‘YOLO’ – or ‘You Only Live Once’.
It’s often heard shouted shortly before dimwitted teens perform their latest act of stupidity, as nicely illustrated by this short YouTube video.
YOLO has however inspired the use of YODO – You Only Die Once.
It’s great to see this trending, particularly on Twitter, as the discussion about dying grows and it no longer seems to be such a taboo topic.
We need to talk about dying; not only the cost of funerals, but the whole subject in an attempt to help people make the most of their finite lives.
It’s for this reason we are hosting a Death Cafe in Cranleigh on Saturday 8th March 2014.
At a Death Cafe, people gather to eat cake, drink tea and discuss death.
It’s an entirely free event and you would be very welcome to join us. The event will be filmed, sensitively, and footage might be used in the documentary we are producing this year about Financial Planning and the Baby Boomer generation.
