Pre - Planning Your Own Funeral

When it comes to funerals many of us don’t like to think about them. Today, more and more people are changing the way they think and find that it makes a lot of sense to pre-arrange their funeral and/or join a pre-payment plan. Throughout our lives we plan for almost every financial eventuality we may face – pre-arranging and/or pre-paying for our funeral helps relieve your family of emotional and financial worries when the time comes.

Your local Funeral-Link funeral director will answer your questions and assist you with those important decisions in planning your funeral – the type of funeral service required, burial or cremation, choice of casket, flowers, catering, headstones and plaques and the many other items associated with the modern funeral.

Dealing with a Funeral-Link funeral director you can have the peace of mind knowing that your wishes are known and that you have made arrangements for them to be carried out. As many funeral directors will tell you, it is not unusual for the grieving family to be unaware of the deceased’s funeral wishes. Pre-arranging and/or pre-paying your funeral means your wishes about how you’d like things to be at your funeral are known and can be respected.

More information

My Life, My Funeral is a planning kit to help with pre-arranging your funeral. The kit has been developed with the wide collective experience of members of the Funeral Directors Association of NZ and is available from any Funeral-Link funeral director.
In the kit, you will find a set of helpful and informative brochures:

• Organising My Funeral discusses various reasons why people choose to plan their own funeral. It provides helpful information on this growing and thoughtful practice.

• My Personal Information and Funeral Choices is a guide to the various parts of a funeral and the service that you might wish to make decisions about. Many of the options are noted to assist you with your choices. These will help your family when it can be hard for them to think clearly. There is space to list the people you want informed and their contact details. Provision is also made to note your personal and family details required by the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages. Your lawyer, accountant, banker and any other significant people or organisations concerned with your life and your estate can be included here too.

• My Notifications checklist prompts you to list the organisations and people who should be advised of your death. They may include the library, Automobile Association, clubs, subscriptions and so on, so your family can let them know to discontinue further contact.

To obtain a free My Life, My Funeral planning kit, visit or telephone your local Funeral-Link funeral director.

Directory of Funeral-Link funeral homes in your area.