Comparison shopping is a natural shopping habit for many people. Whether shopping for groceries, clothes, a car or sometimes even a home loan, checking out the prices of competitors is a smart move by consumers. But the final shopping list of someone’s life — paying for a funeral — isn’t on the radar of many shoppers.

Why? It can be that people don’t want to think that far ahead and consider their future death or a loved one dying. Shopping for a funeral can seem crass, especially at an emotional time in life when money isn’t likely to be considered an issue.

But even for consumers who shop around for a funeral, they can find it difficult to compare prices.

$11,000 difference in funeral costs

A survey by the Funeral Consumers Alliance and the Consumer Federation of America in October of 150 funeral homes throughout the U.S. found that only 25 percent of funeral homes fully disclosed prices on their websites, and 16 percent didn’t fully disclose prices both on their website and in response to an email and a phone call.

The price variations were substantial — from $2,580 to $13,800 for a full-service funeral, and from $640 to $6,800 for immediate burial. Prices of direct cremation ranged from $495 to $7,595.

Direct cremation was without a ceremony. Immediate burial was without a ceremony or casket.

A full-service funeral included the basic services of the funeral director and staff, transport of the body from place of death to funeral home, embalming, other preparation of the body, viewing or calling hours, funeral ceremony with casket present, hearse to cemetery, sedan or limousine for family, and graveside ceremony.

Lack of competition

“The huge price ranges for identical funeral services within individual areas indicate that these markets lack effective competition,” said Stephen Brobeck, CFA’s executive director, in a statement.  “The lack of price competition is unfortunate given the relatively high cost of funeral services and the reluctance of many bereaved consumers to comparison shop for these services.”

Here’s how the price information was obtained for the survey:

• Found on website: 25%
• Provided after an email: 29%
• Provided after a phone call: 29%
• Provided after a personal visit or couldn’t obtain: 16%

The Federal Trade Commission’s Funeral Rule was issued in 1984 and amended in 1994.  It requires funeral homes to provide only price information over the phone or a price list to those visiting the home.  It does not require disclosure on the websites of funeral homes.

“The FTC needs to require funeral homes to disclose prices clearly and completely on their websites,” said Josh Slocum, FCA’s executive director, in a statement.  “This disclosure will greatly increase consumer search for price information. It will also allow journalists, consumer information services, and consumer groups to much more easily research, compare, and report on prices.

FCA and CFA are submitting this research to the FTC and are urging the agency to update the Funeral Rule.

Should You Shop for a Funeral? is a post from: When Life Gives You Lemons. Did you like the post? Follow me on Twitter, like me on Facebook, or hop on over to my blog and leave me your feedback.

When I first started this blog, I didn’t even look up a comparison of WordPress and Blogger. I should have, but I just jumped to Blogger.

There are pros and cons to each. Many people believe that WordPress is better in every single way. I disagree, but I do like it a little better, so here’s my version of WordPress Vs. Blogger:.

Design

Blogger blogs are easier to design, whereas WordPress blogs have more range and options. I’m not terribly tech savvy, so my designs are never super intricate, but I also liked the range of widgets available at blogger better than I do here in WordPress. Plus, adsense was nice.

Ease of Use

In my opinion, Blogger was much easier to use. I think that’s why they do so well, you can just jump right in. WordPress takes a lot more time to use, but this may be because it has a much broader capability.

Stats

I hated Blogger’s stats page. When I logged on, it was messy, annoying, and hard to look at. With WordPress, it’s all laid out neatly and obviously. You can see more of what happened than with Blogger, such as clicks out and not just clicks in.

Comments

WordPress blogs get substantially more spam comments than do Blogger blogs. However, WordPress does do a great job in catching them – my WordPress blog has about a 95% success rate in distinguishing spam comments between real.

It’s so, so difficult to comment on Blogger blogs. WordPress blogs are intuitively easy to comment on. Many people refuse to comment on Blogger blogs – I don’t. I just hope they have the Name/URL option, because logging into WordPress for Blogger rarely works well. However, if a Blogger blog has a captcha, I’ll only comment if I really like the blogger or if the post is pretty good.

Blogger doesn’t allow you to reply directly to comments. Hate this. WordPress does, and it makes life so much easier.

Posting

To be honest, with my Blogger blog, I never used the schedule post option, and with WordPress I do almost always. They both have the option, so neither is more superior in that regard.

Blogger does not allow private, password protected posts. I hate this. I don’t do many (or any), but I like having the option. WordPress allows password protection.

WordPress allows for both categories and tags, whereas Blogger only allows for one.

WordPress allows for a blogger to publicize a post on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Blogger does not.

WordPress allows “likes”. Blogger does not.

Blogger lists followers publicly, WordPress does not.

You can copy a post in WordPress as a template. You can’t in Blogger. You can also request Feedback in WordPress before publishing. In blogger, you cannot.

I’ve stuck with WordPress because the posting, stats, and commenting capabilities are much, much better than Bloggers’. However, it’s personal preference. I have struggled (and continue to struggle) with designing my WordPress blog.

This is just my take on Blogger vs. WordPress. Feel free to tell me yours in the comments. I know Blogger has changed recently, so I didn’t take into account any of the changes the would have done.

Starting a blog? You may also be interested to read some of my other posts about the subject:

Blogging 101

• Why Should You Blog? I Have a Bunch of Reasons!
• If You’re Just Starting Out, You Should Start on WordPress. Here’s why
• Ways to Inject Personality Into Your Posts (because nobody wants to read boring stuff)
• A Post About Knowing Your Audience
• If You Want a Successful, Money Making Blog, You Should Outsource (or quit your job and blog full time)
• Make Sure You Are Running Your Blog Like You’d Run Your Business
• Learn From My Mistakes in Blogging

Should You Blog Anonymously?

• Blogging Anonymously – How to Do It
• A Case for Blogging Publicly
• My Beef with Blogging Anonymously

Feel free to email me with any blogging questions and I’d be happy to help!

You may also be interested in checking out the comments below and leaving one yourself if you don’t know whether to blog on WordPress or Blogger.

Blogger Vs. WordPress is a post from: When Life Gives You Lemons. Did you like the post? Follow me on Twitter, like me on Facebook, or hop on over to my blog and leave me your feedback.