I definitely think a lot of people over-spend although I will say that my mother was prepared to bury my stepfather in a God-awful plastic thing from the crematorium and my step-brother and I were like “no, we’re paying $250 for a nice wooden box.” We literally picked the cheapest one. But it wasn’t plastic.
And the regular cemetery plots were, in round numbers, $1,000 each and could hold two cremains boxes with one headstone for both.
But when my mother got irrationally upset at the prospect of her name appearing on a tombstone before she was actually dead (and there was NO talking her out of this) then we did decide to spring for two $600 cremains plots rather than one $1,000 full plot. This will necessitate an extra tombstone, which was the whole point of the two plots, but as mentioned, those are super cheap through the DOD.
I can see paying for more music if you can afford it, as that’s probably not that much and might make for a nicer ceremony.
I can’t see paying for a $10,000 casket instead of a $2,500 casket unless you need to spend extra for one that’s airline approved and you need to fly the (c)remains somewhere. And there will probably be plenty of flowers… I don’t think we spent a dime on flowers. In spite of asking for charitable donations in lieu of flowers… we still got enough flowers to decorate both the funeral home for the visitation (then transported to the church for the funeral mass) and the grave.