There’s been a lot of headlines and chatter the past day or so about what consumers can expect on winter heating bills:

• Monroe Evening News: State paves way for Michigan Gas rate hike.
• CNN: Home heating crisis looms.
• Our World and Everything in It: Natural gas prices will be much higher this winter.

Now, here’s one of the lessons you need to remember about pinching pennies on family budgets:

Sometimes you can’t do much in practical terms to decrease or limit the bill or expense that is getting your attention.

What you have to do instead is figure out where else in your household budget you CAN cut back the expenses to make up for the difference.

If your monthly finances could be thrown out of whack with higher winter heating bills than you saw last year, you need to take action now with adding more frugal living crayons to your crayon box.

Some of the money-saving tips and tricks that are popular with frugal families do not provide noticeable results in the first month or so because of upfront costs, “seed money,” learning curves, planning details or billing cycles – but they do pay off in the long run.

If you take steps now to do at least one more thing that will decrease overall household expenses, you might notice money-saving results from those efforts right about the time that higher natural gas bill arrives in the mail.

And if you specifically want information on how to get help with utility bills, here is the utility resources page on Julie’s List, which is a community resource guide for Southeast Michigan families. Julie does include Monroe County agencies and programs in her database.