Take this handy dandy quiz to help you determine your best forever home.
Traditional Burial
Going the whole 9 yards to get 6 feet under in today’s traditional sense involves a casket, hearse, and embalming—the process of replacing bodily fluids with a preservative formaldehyde-based solution—making it one of the most expensive ways to rest in peace. In 2023, the median cost of a funeral was $8,300, according to the National Funeral Directors Association, which does not include the cost of a cemetery plot and grave marker. One way to save? Explore your BYOC options. Federal law prohibits funeral providers from refusing a casket that you purchased somewhere else. For the budget-conscious, it’s worth a trip to the Dallas Casket Store. (You’ve seen it right after you’ve just yelled, “You’re LITERALLY killing me!” in rush-hour traffic on U.S. Highway 75.) Although their business name is jarringly straightforward, it is less obvious that they specialize in lower-cost grave markers and caskets. And not only do they provide immediate delivery to any funeral home of your choosing, but they’re next door to Cindi’s NY Delicatessen, so you can stress-eat a bagel right after choosing your afterlife bed.
Green Burial
Green burials aim to use eco-friendly and all-natural materials and practices. Typically, no embalming fluids are used, and no metal vaults or concrete-lined caskets are allowed. Mountain Creek Cemetery in Grand Prairie is one such certified hybrid cemetery with green options. To help reduce costs, they offer double-depth spaces for family members to stack up. (Sorry, no besties allowed.) But let’s be sure to leave enough space between each other for the Holy Spirit, kids. We gotta have rules. Another one: “The use of the top space must be approved by the purchasing family member,” leading to immediate questions about what kind of family drama they’ve dealt with over positioning in the past. (Pricing starts at $2,000 for a single plot plus $1,400 for opening and closing of the grave, not including funeral home services, caskets, or grave markers.)
Home Burial
While Texas allows for DIY burial, the city of Dallas doesn’t want you setting up a family plot out back. So, if home burial is at the top of your death wishlist, it’s time to snuggle up with someone who has a ranch in the outskirts. Then you’ll need to check with the local county government to determine if that property is suitable for dedicating a cemetery. Considerations such as flood plains, drainage, underground cabling or pipelines, and more can make this a delicate process. (For more details about home burial in Texas, visit the Funeral Consumers Alliance of North Texas website.)
Donate Your Body
All Texans can check the box on their driver’s license or register with Donate Life Texas to donate organs, eyes, and tissues to help others in need. (Share, you guys. You’re dead. Let someone else use your leftover eyeballs.) You can also pre-plan to donate your body to science through UT Southwestern’s Willed Body Program. When they’re done studying you, in accordance with state law, they will cremate the remains. The cremains may be returned to your next of kin, or you can go the super cool route and opt for a burial at sea just off the coast of Texas in the Gulf of Mexico. (UT Southwestern handles everything for free, including cremation or burial at sea. Extreme couponers, rejoice.)
Traditional Cremation
Cremation can reduce funeral costs by at least 40 percent. For this reason, the cremation rate has surpassed burial, currently clocking in around 60 percent. Worth noting: a rise in gas prices can increase cremation pricing since fossil fuels are typically used. (Those dinosaurs will get you every time.) You’ll need to think about whether you’d like the cremains kept in a designated place such as a church or mausoleum, at your home, or scattered somewhere specific. Some suggestions for Dallasites that may or may not be legal: off the top of the Texas Giant at Six Flags Over Texas; your favorite parallel parking spot on Lowest Greenville; at Birdshit Cove on the White Rock Trail; I-635 at 5 pm headed straight into the blinding sun; in the frocket of Big Tex’s Dickies shirt. (Simple Cremation in Dallas offers packages from $995 to $4,995.)
Water Cremation
Traditional cremation is cost-effective but produces millions of tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year. If you’re hoping to curb the toxins that get exhaled onto our gorgeous skylines like so much cigar smoke pouring out of your grandpa’s yapper, water cremation might be for you. By taking the fire out of the process, it significantly reduces cremation’s carbon footprint. (Trigger warning: this next part gets kinda spicy, so watch an episode of The Great British Bake Off if you’d prefer something lighter.) OK, for those of you still with me, water cremation uses hot water, alkaline chemicals, and pressure to break a body down. Yes, like a pressure cooker. For people. You’ll never look at Instant Pot pulled pork the same again—say this next part like Justin Wilson from Louisiana Cookin’ on PBS—I guarantee. Water cremation isn’t legal in Texas yet, so you’ll have to look to our neighbors to the north for help. McElyea & Owens Funeral Group in Shawnee, Oklahoma, has you covered for $1,695, which includes transport to Oklahoma, plus the cost of an urn and death certificates.
Human Composting
Human composting, also known as “natural organic reduction,” also isn’t legal in Texas yet. But you can send your remains to Return Home in Auburn, Washington, where they’ll transform them “into life-giving soil using only alfalfa, straw, and sawdust.” Their trademarked Terramation process uses a vessel that stimulates the body’s microbes, rapidly transforming it into soil in just 30 days. Choose to have the enriched soil shipped home to your loved ones or scattered on their 8-acre woodland property to “revitalize local flora.” Sure, the cost of human composting is high. But think of the money you’ll save your family on Miracle-Gro. (Costs include $2,500 for shipping to Washington, $4,950 for composting and delivery of resulting soil, and $500 for an optional ceremony.)
Keepsake
If you’re OK with cremation, now you can make your family do much crazier things with your ashes than just throwing them at your enemies. The Milky Rose Boutique can turn your boring ashes into conversation-starting memorial jewelry for that family member who says, “A locket with your face in it isn’t enough, but cuddling with your urn is too much” (from $75). Do you love vinyl? Wanna be it? The UK company And Vinyly can press ashes into a vinyl recording, and they ship internationally. They recommend recording “a personal message, your last will and testament, your own soundtrack or just the sound of silence to hear your pops and crackles for the minimal approach” (from $1,300).
Space or Fireworks
Wanna be fireworks? Me, too! And now, you can! Take a quick road trip to Greenlawn Funeral Home in Missouri, where they’re happy to shoot the ashes of your loved ones into the sky in a blaze of glory—even synchronized to Jon Bon Jovi’s “Blaze of Glory,” if you want (from $3,895 for 2–3 minutes to $12,995 for 15 minutes of fireworks). Are fireworks too fleeting? Have your ashes shot into space by Celestis Memorial Spaceflights so they can embark “on a permanent celestial journey.” (Pricing ranges from $12,995 to $25,990, depending on how much of you you’d like to send to outer space; celestis.com.)
This story originally appeared in the November issue of D Magazine with the headline “OK, You’re Dead. Now What?” Write to feedback@dmagazine.com.
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