'Dead cheap': Company selling 'DIY coffin kits' to help keep funeral costs down

A Japanese company has come up with a unique and morbid way to keep funeral costs down after creating a DIY coffin kit. Photo / 123rf

A Japanese company has come up with a unique and morbid way to keep funeral costs down after creating a DIY coffin kit.

The cheap build-your-own funeral kit contains everything you need to go six feet under, and costs roughly NZ$520.

According to the website, the kit contains one wooden coffin, one small metal urn, one silver box for storing bones left over from the cremation, a duvet set for the coffin, a head pillow, mattress, comforter duvet, one DIY funeral handbook and a Furoshiki (wrapping cloth).

Despite the affordable price, the kit will come with additional costs, including ground rental and burial costs, but the DIY coffin could save a family thousands.

The kit comes with an assembling instruction booklet.

While you need a living human to assemble the kit, the company warns builders not to attempt home burials or cremations.

A mortician will also be needed for the embalming.

The DIY coffin even has the option for an open-casket ceremony, with a viewing hatch provided.

The DIY handbook also contains instructions on ceremonial rites that can help put the soul of the departed to rest.

A do-it-yourself kit funeral kit produced by a Nagano-based company is now on sale in Japan.

Shinohara Norifumi, the CEO of Tsubasa Public Utility Co, which manufactures the kits, said: "This manual contains information on how to carry the body, how to lay it down, and when actually cremating, how to make an appointment, how to pay, how to do it at the crematory, those things are explained."

The kit is available for purchase from Japan on the Tsubasa Online Store website here.