Why buy a coffin for a 1 day viewing? Coffins or caskets can cost $5,000. In some cases, the family member that passed never spent that much on a car their entire life.

Note: coffin or not, a corpse being buried must be put in a water tight vault for North Carolina cemeteries. A pine box will work just as well as a $5000 coffin in the vault.

So this sounds a little curt, but why not just rent the coffin? I thought about that as a business but looks like some frugal, wise business person can rest in peace on being first: https://www.everplans.com/articles/save-money-on-a-funeral-with-a-rental-casket

Pardon the morbidity.