Massachusetts Funerals are EXPENSIVE! Here’s how we rank vs. other states

Funerals are an unfortunate part of life. I, unfortunately, have seen my fair share of them recently. It's a really tough time. On one hand you need to process everything going on, you want to reminisce about the good times, you need time to cry, and then there's the cost. And sadly Massachusetts has some of the most expensive funerals in the country.

Analysts at Now Patient used data from the World Population Review to find the average cost of dying in each US state. Gosh that sounded really morbid.

What they found is that Hawaii has the most expensive funerals in the United States. The average funeral in Hawaii tips the budget at $15,203. Ouch.
California has the second most expensive funerals in America, the average being $10,727. Oregon funerals are the third most expensive, the average funeral there costs $10,424.

Massachusetts wasn't too far behind that at all. The Bay State came in 5th with the average funeral in the state costing $10,270.

The least expensive funerals in the state can be found in Mississippi where the average funeral costs $6,568.

So let's end on a positive note. Putting the funerals and expense of them aside, let's look at one of the many reasons living in New England is pretty awesome: it's relatively safe here! In fact we got 5 cities in the Top 10 when it comes to safety. Check it out below!

What are the safest cities in America? Thankfully we have websites that keep tabs on these types of statistics for us so we can determine where we may want to live in the future. Or, we can decide if we want to move immediately. Wallet Hub has put together a ranking of the safest cities in America and some of these cities may surprise you. Before we run down the entire list, let’s take a look at what factors they’re considering.

Wallet Hub looked at 182 cities including the 150 most populated ones and evaluated statistics in these key categories: 1) Home & Community Safety, 2) Natural-Disaster Risk, and 3) Financial Safety. Each number then received a certain weight and was then added up to receive a potential best score of 100 being the highest. Other categories looked at are traffic fatalities, law enforcement employees, thefts, sex offenders, EMTs, number of mass shootings, terror attacks and several other factors. If you want to see the entire list you can click HERE.

We will show you the top 10 of the safest cities in America along with where Boston and Worcester actually landed. Worcester surprisingly ranked WAY HIGHER than Boston. Boston is ranked surprisingly low. The other interesting fact to mention, there are actually 5 New England cities in the top 10! Oh, and if you're interested in what city is America's least safest (or potentially most dangerous), it's St. Louis, MO.

So let's take a look at the top 10 safest cities in America and celebrate why these cities were chosen. We all know someone who lives in the #1 city so I'm sure the debate as to whether or not it was worthy to top the list will continue. But in the meantime, let's celebrate Nashua because despite if you agree or not, it really is a pretty cool achievement. Let's dig in.

Boston received a total score of 73.25. The three main categories scores are: Home and Community 138, Natural Disaster Risk 35 and Financial Safety 14. The interesting fact here is that Boston was way outranked by Worcester.

https://gocity.com/boston/en-us/blog/boston-safe

Worcester received a total score of 81.21. The three main categories scores are: Home and Community 35, Natural Disaster Risk 17 and Financial Safety 57.  Many may disagree and say Boston should be outranking Worcester here. But you can't argue numbers.

https://realestate.usnews.com/places/massachusetts/worcester/crime

Scottsdale received a total score of 83.63. The three main categories scores are: Home and Community 17, Natural Disaster Risk 53 and Financial Safety 28. Check out this statistic: The chance of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime in Scottsdale is 1 in 38.

Burlington, VT received a total score of 83.7. The three main categories scores are: Home and Community 28, Natural Disaster Risk 37 and Financial Safety 10.  Even the website Niche.com considers Burlington "very safe" citing NO safety concerns.  Although, if you see this video you may disagree.

Yonkers received a total score of 83.76. The three main categories scores are: Home and Community 4, Natural Disaster Risk 39 and Financial Safety 122.  Overall, Yonkers reports a crime rate of 10.45 incidents per 1,000 residents.

Casper received a total score of 83.92. The three main categories scores are: Home and Community 27, Natural Disaster Risk 20 and Financial Safety 11.  Niche actually calls Casper only "somewhat safe" and property crime is actually pretty high there.

Portland received a total score of 83.99. The three main categories scores are: Home and Community 32, Natural Disaster Risk 11 and Financial Safety 2.

Warwick received a total score of 84.03. The three main categories scores are: Home and Community 9, Natural Disaster Risk 22 and Financial Safety 68.  Warwick out ranks Providence by a significant amount. Providence is way down at #46.

Gilbert received a total score of 84.24. The three main categories scores are: Home and Community 10, Natural Disaster Risk 14 and Financial Safety 56.  Gilbert has a population of 250,000 and it is consistently one of the cities' safest.

South Burlington received a total score of 85.18. The three main categories scores are: Home and Community 21, Natural Disaster Risk 36 and Financial Safety 1. The chance of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime in South Burlington is 1 in 41.

Scottsdale received a total score of 85.97. The three main categories scores are: Home and Community 1, Natural Disaster Risk 63 and Financial Safety 85.  This is Columbia's 6th consecutive year of being in the top 10.

Scottsdale received a total score of 86. The three main categories scores are: Home and Community 8, Natural Disaster Risk 27 and Financial Safety 8.