NYT Image: Forensic Anthropological Research Center trainees in Knoxville, work with donated remains in an undated photo.
With money tight and work elusive, Deena Mangan is selling her jewelry, coins and camera collection. Also on the table: eternity next to her family.
The Littleton, Colo., resident is listing her family's last burial plot at Fairmount Cemetery for sale on Craigslist and eBay at nearly half cost, joining countless other Americans who are postponing tomorrow's death plans to pay today's bills.
"I'm out of work, and I'm selling anything and everything I can to stay afloat," said Mangan, 57, who has gone one year with no job prospects in her information technology field. "I don't want any ceremony. I'm donating my body to science and then cremation. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust."
The booming second market for burial plots is just one sign of how this prolonged economic winter has chilled the $15-billion-a-year funeral business.
Affordable cremations are on the rise. Funeral directors say families are forgoing elaborate ceremonies, choosing modest floral arrangements and passing on the limo.
"I can't think of anything that is recession-proof anymore," said Will DeBoer, cemetery manager for the Evergreen and Fairview cemeteries in Colorado Springs.
Already this year, DeBoer has cut 40 percent of his staff, a bite that mirrors his decline in revenue for the cemeteries that, while city-owned, must pay their own way. DeBoer said more people are selling their cemetery plots than at any time during his 18 years in the business.
He has noticed an increase in cremations, which can cost a fraction of the cost of a traditional casket burial. He's seeing grandkids chipping in to help pay for services. And he said more people are taking urns of ashes with them instead of paying to bury them in a cemetery - a move he said some may regret.
"I remember a quote from long ago: 'Often we forfeit tomorrow's memories for today's economies,' " DeBoer said. "But if you are looking at putting food on the table, you have to go on living."
Nationally, funeral home revenues have declined as customers corral spending. A 2009 survey by the National Funeral Directors Association shows families choosing less expensive caskets or cremation, trimming services and requesting credit or financing to pay for services. The association also noted declining "preneed" sales to people prepaying for their funerals.
"Families are making different choices when planning funerals," said association spokeswoman Jessica Koth.
Elvin Caldwell, owner of Denver's Caldwell Kirk Mortuary and president of the Colorado Funeral Directors Association, said the recession has created a "more conservative and low-key approach" to funerals.
"People are still buying, but I'd say there is a conscious tendency to hold back a little more than they would if things were better," Caldwell said. '`We aren't getting hit as bad as other industries, but this thing has finally impacted us.
''We are not impenetrable. We are vulnerable.``
John Horan, the fifth-generation owner of Denver's 119-year-old Horan & McConaty, says his customers are exploring all options for trimming costs.
''People are being a lot more careful. They are asking lots of questions," said Horan, who has been absorbing losses, especially when it comes to taking care of struggling families. "You don't tend to hear about how funeral homes are quietly caring for people with financial hardships. And we've seen more of those than ever before this year. In some cases, we just give it away. How do I tell a Catholic family whose baby has just passed away that they can't have a funeral?``
Cremations have steadily increased every year since the 1960s. In Colorado, the cremation rate is about 50 percent. While it's hard to tag any recent increases as economically motivated, the option appears to be more popular than ever during this recession. (The national funeral directors' survey showed more than a third of respondents reporting cremation rates increasing ''because of the recession.``)
The significantly cheaper cost of cremation - on average about $1,200 - compared with a casket burial at about $8,000 is appealing to those guarding their dollars. Cemetery plots alone can cost anywhere from about $1,700 to $5,000.
''I'm thinking about cremation because of how expensive it is to do a regular burial,'` said Rudy Sanchez, 56, who is selling his two Green Mountain Cemetery plots in Boulder for $1,000 each - about half their value. A veteran, Sanchez is leaning toward cremation and burial, using government benefits. While still employed, the Northglenn, Colo., resident is scraping for money for a new vehicle. Top of the list of salable items is his family's burial plots.
''Maybe in a better time, I'd keep them,`` Sanchez said.
Tyler Rowen lost his power-plant engineering job in July and is offering his family's plots at Crown Hill Cemetery in Wheat Ridge for roughly half price.
''I'm short on money, and I need to make ends meet," said the 55-year-old Denver resident. "If I was working, I would not be letting them go.``
The spike in second-market sales has made it a buyer's market for burial plots, said Ken Brant, whose Grave Solutions website hosts thousands of ads for cemetery plots, including 639 in Colorado.
''Buying activity has picked up," Brant said. "Most of the people we see buying are younger, Internet-savvy and they are buying for arrangements for someone who recently died.``
Joshua Slocum fields hundreds of calls every month from buyers seeking affordability in funerals. As executive director of the consumer advocacy group Funeral Consumers Alliance, Slocum sees the interest in saving money on funerals as a good thing that will rein in a funeral industry ''built on guilt" and harboring "a great potential for abuse.``
''Who wants to have to say, 'This is too expensive for my dead mother'?" said Slocum, who describes his mission at his website, funerals.org, as fighting "the idea that you can show love through spending.``
''If you are struggling with a $1,000 mortgage payment, like a lot of families are now, what are you going to do with an $8,000 funeral payment? There is no shame in remembering someone within your means," he said.
''Some of the nicest ceremonies I've ever been to have been potlucks at the widow's home."