agonyaunt | Two letters from one PayDirt column

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Two letters from one PayDirt column

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1. Dear Pay Dirt,

Is there etiquette (or ethics) around what survivors do with memorial money donated at a funeral? I always thought a memorial donation was meant to be given to a charity of the family’s choice in honor of the deceased. A close friend of mine just lost his elderly father, and because the family hadn’t listed any preferred charities in the obituary, I put a hefty cash donation with the card at the funeral, assuming it would go to a charity of their choice.
Later, my friend mentioned that he and his siblings were going to put any memorial cash toward funeral expenses. I know that funerals are expensive, but my friend is doing well financially, and his brother married into generational wealth of an amount that is mind-boggling. It seems petty and cheap, and perhaps dishonest, of them to put memorials toward expenses. If I had known this, I would have donated directly to a charity, but it’s too late for that now. If they were struggling financially, I wouldn’t mind so much, but it seems inappropriate at best, and downright sleazy at worst. Or maybe everyone does this and I have been deluded about the purpose of memorial donations. I’m also not sure whether to bring it up with my friend or let it go. Your thoughts?

—Memorial Muddle

Dear Memorial Muddle,
I’ve opened a lot of memorial and condolence cards in my decades. None had a wad of cash enclosed. Once in a while, someone passed along a check to help the family cover expenses. Still, I’m baffled as to why you think there’s something wrong with the family using it to defray costs rather than donate it to a charitable organization.

Funerals can be extremely expensive. Cremation, burial plots, mausoleums, monuments, and headstones each cost several thousand dollars. Then there’s food, clergy, and actually opening the grave. When all’s said and done, you could easily spend $15,000 to $40,000, or more. Most people don’t have that amount sitting around in cash. And, it can take months, if not years, for the heirs to settle an estate and access their inheritance, if there even is any to be had.

Historically, funerals were a time for a community to come together and mourn their collective loss. As for using your donation to help defray costs, I wonder if your friend’s wealth is perhaps not as great as you think, or that he and his bride haven’t come into the big bucks yet. Or, maybe the wealthy in-laws have made other plans for their cash. Beyond counting other people’s money, which strikes me as particularly unseemly during times of sadness or stress, perhaps the family already made a significant donation to a worthy cause in memory of the deceased.

If this really gnaws at you, next time choose a worthy charity and make your own contribution in the deceased’s name.

**********************

2. Dear Pay Dirt,
I’m struggling with money and the parents of my child’s friends. My middle school-aged child is kind and engaging and has lots of friends who spend a lot of time at our home. I have spent several thousand dollars feeding these guests over the summer. (Not snacks, meals.) I ask myself when they leave home in the morning, and their parents have not given them any money, who do their parents think is feeding their children night after night after night?

Most of the hanging out happens at our house. Occasionally, my child will go to one of their homes. I don’t think they have ever been given more than a bag of potato chips by another parent. My child always texts to see if I can send money to buy dinner. I’ve never met any of their parents. These kids have to take buses to get here so it’s not like they can go home, eat, and come back, even if their parents were home to feed them.

I wish I were one of those people who loves to wine and dine the multitudes, but I hate to cook, and I don’t have a lot of money. I’m ashamed to admit this, but sometimes I wonder how I can feed my child dinner without feeding everybody else. Any advice is welcome!

—Not Proud of Feeling Stingy

Dear Not Proud of Feeling Stingy,

You are doing a great thing! It may be difficult to see this now, but you’re demonstrating to your middle school-age child how to build a life filled with generosity and meaningful relationships. They will understand how to nurture people and welcome them into their home and world. It’s an amazing gift for their future.

But, I get it. It’s hard to manage this in the present, especially with limited funds. Assuming your child will continue to be social, and that children of this age are always hungry, how can you make the most of this largess so that it pays dividends to you as well? My suggestion is to engage your child—and perhaps even their friends—in exploring the world of cooking and baking. I have hardly met a young person these days who isn’t enamored with food (thanks, YouTube tutorials!). So, even though you don’t love cooking, you clearly love your child and spending time with them. I think you should begin a tradition of doing food prep together over the weekend so that your guest-filled days and evenings are less stressful and less expensive.

Chopping up carrots, celery, onions, and other vegetables will allow you to throw them with some dried beans or lentils into a slow cooker in the morning, and wind up with a rich soup or stew for less than $1 per serving. Keep pasta and jarred marinara sauce in the pantry and then quickly toast bread and cheese sprinkled with garlic powder for another reasonable meal. Buy a pre-cooked chicken at your local grocery or warehouse store and chop it up so that you have a couple of pounds of chicken you can use in a number of ways for less than $6 total. Buy some pizza dough (or make your own) and a large bag of mozzarella cheese and the kids will happily bake their own pizzas. If you can, trade highly processed snacks for a bag of apples or oranges or pop your own popcorn, which the kids can top with different flavorings.

Getting this train rolling takes a bit of thought and work on your end, but the kids will eventually engage, you’ll spend less money and you’ll all eat a little healthier. In the meantime, try not to keep a mental receipt of who’s paying for what and ignore what happens when your child visits her friends’ homes. As my mother, who was a tremendous cook and baker, always said, “I don’t care how other parents raise their children.”

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

LW1 pisses me off so much. Did your friends lie to you about where the money is going? Did they even ask you for money? No, and no again! So once you've given the money, if they want to spend it to defray costs of the funeral, or on movie night, or, yeah, on hookers and blow that is their business. Money is fungible anyway.

(Though it's worth noting that funerals, like weddings, run the whole gamut on pricing. Not everybody wants to do the sort of things that will run up a big bill in the first place, and that's also okay.)

As for LW2, it's hard to say if PayDirt gave them good advice because they were never clear on what sort of advice they wanted in the first place.

Did they want advice on telling these kids no? Or advice on making cheaper meals in bulk? Or...?

PayDirt obviously steered towards answer 2, which is fair. When kids keep showing up and eating your food, you might ask "Don't their parents wonder where they're eating dinner?" but for all you know the parents don't care where, or even if, they eat dinner, and if they don't eat at your home they don't eat at all. Or maybe the kids eat at your house and then go home and eat there as well. It's hard to just say "That's it, the hospitality ends today" when you just don't know.

In cases like this, I suggest putting two things on heavy rotation: chili with baked potatoes, heavy on the beans and light on the meat; and pasta. You can mix it up with occasional beans and rice dishes - chana masala may not be in your repetoire if you're not Indian, but it's worth learning to make it because it tastes good enough, it's filling, and it's cheap.

They do run the whole gamut on pricing--but for some people's budget the cost of an extremely basic cremation and no service at all is still a "big bill," for which they are desperately grateful for memorial donations to assist. That's why I was furious with LW1 as well.

Never mind the fact that many people leave medical costs, or that clearing out their rooms/apartments/houses sometimes takes time, energy, money, and/or services that people don't always have. Never mind the fact that sometimes the people who are grieving and/or doing the work of clearing out an estate don't have the energy to cook or the money to order takeout. There's just such a long list of costs. Death is expensive. LW1 is being such a jerk about it.

for some people's budget the cost of an extremely basic cremation and no service at all is still a "big bill," for which they are desperately grateful for memorial donations to assist

Of course. And obviously if you didn't absolutely hate your "loved ones" and have any sort of community ties at all you don't want to be seen doing nothing more than what's provided by the state.

Not even just "be seen," either--done right, funerals can be a significant source of community support. When my friend said to me after my dad's funeral, "I've never seen so many middle-aged Midwestern white men openly weeping," she really put her finger on the shared grief of the day, and it meant a lot to my mother and me to not just know but directly see that we were not the only ones who would miss him desperately--and to see that there were people who didn't know Dad as well directly but were there to express support for us. LW1 should have been part of that community outpouring in the latter way if not the former, and instead they're judging their friend at a really low point in friend's life. Shame on them.

Yeah, a wedding literally could be no cost, but a funeral can't. And a funeral is not voluntary, either.

I've never heard of funeral money being for charity donations. It's always for funeral expenses, so I feel like it could be a cultural mismatch between the LW and his friend, too.

Yeah, a wedding literally could be no cost, but a funeral can't. And a funeral is not voluntary, either.

Oh, it can, if you're willing to abandon your relative's body to the state. People die indigent and with no family to claim them all the time, and since we can't just leave bodies lying around the government ultimately will have to do something.

But the social cost of this is not insignificant. People are absolutely going to have opinions. Most people are not willing to go through that without a seriously good reason, as in "That person violently abused me from birth".

A formal funeral can be optional. (The last one I attended was a zoom meeting.) But it costs to deal with the body.

Yeah, I was folding all of the death-related expenses into "funeral". Even if you don't have a service, just burying someone is usually very expensive.

I have often seen “Donations to ~Specific Charity~ in lieu of flowers”, but that’s specifically for if you would’ve sent flowers for the funeral but they aren’t wanted by the family. It’s ’give to this charity in memory of the deceased rather than buying expensive wreaths which will go in the bin in a few days’ time’.

Re: LW2, "I’m struggling with money...I have spent several thousand dollars...I don’t have a lot of money" makes me think that the LW is looking for advice on how to broach the financial aspect with the other children's parents. All the bulk meal prep in the world won't help if LW can't afford to keep feeding all the other kids.

I know sometimes people suggest donations in lieu of flowers, but if someone just gave me cash at a funeral, I would assume it was for expenses.

Lw#2 I think you may need to at least try asking the parents for money (I would try email). And/or feed the children three bean chili.

If the family have a particular charity in mind, or one especially appropriate to the memory of the deceased, it will usually be mentioned - e.g. 'donations to Good Cause in lieu of flowers'.

Also, I note some of the family money is 'they married into it'. Delicate issue of whether loaded spouse should be expected to cover less-loaded spouse's familial obligatory expenses.

Delicate issue of whether loaded spouse should be expected to cover less-loaded spouse's familial obligatory expenses.

This is how people accumulate familial wealth - they're very clear on whose family covers which obligations when they write out the pre-nup.

Feeding other people's kids seems to be a perennial topic, and I always find myself wondering why even attempting to talk to the other parents is not an option.

Indeed. I am not a parent (happily), but so many parenting questions seem to come down to the total absence of a backbone. Send these kids home for lunch! If you let them stay once a week they get pasta. This is not in fact hard.

I mean, if somebody called me up on the phone to say "Hey, your kid eats dinner here too often and I'd like them to knock it off" I'd have no idea what to say. "Uh... okay, well, stop feeding them?"

What if it was, "When your kid comes over here for dinner, could you make sure they have $X on them to help pay for the pizza?"

I'd tell them to send my kid home if they don't want to feed them, and I would continue to do the same.

Even if I give kid $X in the morning there's no guarantee they'll still have it when they decide to stay at a friend's house, and if they're old enough to go around on their own without my checking in every five minutes then I think they're old enough to hear "No, you can't stay for dinner, go home".

With LW2 I have a strong suspicion that the "thousands of dollars" is going toward pizza and takeout - which is fine if it's a special treat when friends come over once in awhile, and fine if it's what you want to do with your family, but not fine to feed all the kids in the neighborhood all summer!

LW, you need to switch to something cheap, filling, and boring on days the kids come over. PayDirt's advice is good - every culture has something based on slow-cooking whatever the cheapest grain is and maybe throwing in some protein or vegetables. I just tried the classic hippie commune pot of whatever bulk grain is cheapest and whatever vegetables are season boiled into mush with either soy sauce, peanuts, canned beans, or a little bit of meat broth. Feeds a lot of people with very little money or work, and incredibly filling, and only remotely appetizing if you're actually hungry.

You will stop spending more money that you don't have, you will still be feeding all the kids who actually need fed, and the kids who just want to come over to your house because there's always pizza will suddenly decide they want to go home for dinner. (Perhaps your kid will suddenly decide to eat at their places more often, too!)

Edited 2024-09-10 15:57 (UTC)

When my dad died, back in 1987, a particular friend of mine had no idea what to do. Not just in terms of emotional support. She didn't know what was the polite thing to do. So she asked her mom what you do when somebody died, and her mom said you go over and help clean their house. She came and offered, and I burst into tears. Partly because she was being kind and generous, and partly because the house had not been cleaned in 8 years and it had to be fit for major company in 36 hours. (My mother thanked her, and her mother, for the offer and sent her right back home.)

There are a lot of things people do after a death. I gather that it's customary in some religions to give flowers, and I remember when I occasionally saw death announcements ending with "in lieu of flowers, donations may be made to The Salvation Army or the ASPCA." I think it's common across most religions to bring food to mourners. Or arrange meal delivery.

Money directly to the family seems to be more "Here. Use this the way Ploni would have wanted." You're trusting the family to know how the deceased would have wanted to spend it, and maybe it's NOT how you would have chosen. Whether it's giving it to the Salvation Army or to buy a fancy coffin. If you'd wanted to make a charitable donation in his name, you could have done so.

couple of pounds of chicken you can use in a number of ways for less than $6 total.

Where is Pay Dirt shopping?? I’ve never seen rotisserie chickens for less than $11 even at Walmart or Costco.

On the other hand, I've never seen a whole chicken that only was a couple of pounds.

Costco rotisserie chickens are guaranteed to be at least three pounds, but I've seem some pretty scrawny rotisserie chickens at other places.

$7.99 and 32 oz (2 lbs) at the local Stop & Shop in Boston as of last month, and that's only with recent inflation. Less than $6 seems reasonable to me up until a couple/few years ago, and this is not the cheapest part of the country.

Where are you shopping? Even at the non-discount grocery I go to when Target doesn't have what I want, rotisserie chickens are usually $8 or so.

Rotisserie chickens are $4.99 each at Costco in the US. Famously so. It's probably a loss leader, but they've maintained that price throughout this century.

Ontario, Canada. Stuff does tend to be a bit pricier up here for some reason. The only US state I see regularly is on the West Coast and that tends to be pricy too, but… West Coast.

Being in Canada means the dollars aren't the same, either. That adds a buck or more to the price on that alone.

#2: what confuses me is the part where their kid is at a friend's house, and the kid phones home (ok, texts home) asking for money for dinner. If they're at the friend's house, isn't friend/friend's associated adults responsible for dinner? And is the kid asking for money for their own meal (everyone is going to McD's, kid wants to get whatever) or the whole meal (an order is being put in and the food to be brought home, the visitor covering it all)? Either way, if that's how it's handled at those houses, it seems reasonable to say that if ordering in, that's how it will be handled at your house. Or, dinner time is when the visitors go home to their own houses.

It almost sounds from the letter like there just... isn't enough food at the friend's home for LW's child?

Re LW#2, it's clear to me that they're asking for advice on how to say no to constantly feeding their child's friends. Maybe the parents of their child's friends can't afford to feed their kids--but LW is saying they can't afford to feed them either. (Like, how many extra kids is LW feeding every day? Two? 5? 10?) Advice on how or what to cook misses the point; food is expensive, especially when LW#2 is footing the entire bill, and this would be true even if LW loved to cook from scratch.

Unpopular opinion here: LW#2 needs to have a serious discussion with their child about what is feasible for them to provide for their friends going forward. Together, LW and their child need to set iron-clad boundaries: eg the number of friends allowed over at any one time, and agreement on whatever food LW is willing to feed visitors (eg snacks only). Because unless the other parents are willing to chip in somehow, LW won't be able to continue for much longer.

Yeah, this all needs a talk with LW's kid, starting with finding out if, indeed, those kids get fed at home and then laying down the law about which nights friends can come over and how many friends at a time. (I'd be more flexible if the kids are not getting fed and less if they are, naturally.)

I would say to LW1 that they gave that money without being prompted for it, as a gift. Once it's out of your hands and in the recipient's, it's their prerogative to decide what to do with it. Plus all the columnist's remarks about how wealthy this family looks from the outside not necessarily reflecting their actual circumstances is so, so true.

To LW2, the columnist has kind and actionable suggestions, but I think it would be fine to cut back a bit on feeding all comers as well. This is tough because some of these kids might be dealing with bad circumstances at home but... LW is just one person and they can't parent everybody's child. It's ok to sometimes shoo the friends on home once mealtime rolls around.

In my culture, I would broadly expect money given at a funeral to be treated as a gift and therefore donated.

BUT if the LW had a specific use for the money in mind they should have donated it themselves (best option) or included a note to say do (less good).

However, the overriding rule of funeral etiquette is *Don't be an asshole to the mourning family*.

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