Advice if you are 'in charge' when someone dies

I'm going to amend this as I think of other things. 

I will start with an explanation.

After my sister Kathy got ill, I became in charge of her care.   I had to learn a lot of things the hard way.  Perhaps this blog will help someone who is now in the situation I was in back then.

Don't use the big name funeral parlor. 

It seems weird to start with this one, but it is an important thing.  The local big name funeral parlor wanted over $3000 for a cremation.   We went with Lusain for $799 for the same procedure.  My family has plots in the large local cemetary, and both of my sisters were cremated and interred there.  Local (or state?) law requires a vault even though we were only burying ashes.  This of course means more money for the cemetary.  Whatever.  You will get fees etc. floated and feel a bit ripped off.  I ordered her stone without checking which pattern the rest of my family has, and as a result it doesn't match the others.  So check that first.  It's not a fun experience but you'll get through it.

Don't have her address changed to yours.

This was suggested to me by someone at the post office, and seemed like a smart move at the time, because it meant I didn't have to go to her house to get important mail after her death.  I didn't want to go by her house, as it made me sad and was inconvenient, and in some ways doing the address change was helpful, but it's been over three years and I still get junk mail and solicitations addressed to her.  I have done the process online to have the junk mail stopped several times now,  so it's less common, but it still happens.

Being executor of an estate is a role that takes years to finish.

Maybe you know this already.  I didn't.  I am still glad to have done it, but now I am reconsidering who I would ask to be executor of my estate, because it's a lot more time consuming and involved than I thought it would be.