The dead costs money too...

It's not the taxes or liquidation of assets that cost money after a person passed away; it was the Chinese traditional ceremonies and all those related funeral needs and cemetery needs. As last count, here is a list all in Macau currency (MOP):

1) 54,000 for the funeral home usage, make-up, dress, paper offerings (from purse to car to house to maids), coffin, 3 tables of vegetarian meals at the funeral home, transportation to crematorium in Zhuhai, China; then there was the injection and the licence to transport the body, the usage of the hospital morgue, every single thing you can thing of, cost money. And that's a complete package.

2) 90,000 for a plague to be placed in the temple so the "children" do need to visit the tomb to pay respect. That is a discount.

3) 4,500 for the meal after the funeral was done. Small potatoes compared to the other expenses.

4) 39,000 to have the tomb opened to place the ashes with the husband's bones. That includes the redone of the wording on the tomb stone.

5) 25,000 the hospital stay prior to grandma's passing.

6) 35,000 for the last day of the mourning period Buddhist praying service. Cannot have 4 monks but six monks because based on the calculation on the Chinese calendar of her birth date and time as well as the death date and time, she had been sent to hell six layers deep. Need to break that six layers so grandma can head to heaven and reborn somewhere.

Other odds and ends stuff like tips to the funeral home people, the drivers for transportation of everyone (dead or alive) to Zhuhai for the cremation. The purchase of the urn, the cremation fee, etc... It comes to about 250,000 on a conservative side. The real kicker. The funeral home charged extra money, in advance, to hold the ashes for us after cremation. But the place to hold the ashes closes on Monday! And that was the day we had the cremation. Let us wonders what is going on there.

One year, 3 old people over 90's. Actually more, my great aunt passed away a month or so after my grandma, she was 102 at the time; and then the great aunt's niece died of a sudden acute stomach cancer. Discovered shortly after the great aunt passed away and she was gone six months later. So between 2008 March to now, we have buried 5 people.

One thing very interesting is that, my most recent grandma's passaway date is one day shy of my other grandma (dad's side).