ALBANY, N.Y. - Home heating rates are nearly double what they were this time last year because of global unease, damaging hurricanes and demand weighing on supply.

Right now, oil for your home costs about $4.29 per gallon, compared with $2.74 in September 2007. Natural gas also has jumped. In June 2008, the average price was $2.106 per thermal unit, according to the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, a 13.8 percent hop from last September.

What's a consumer to do? Choices include locking in home heating rates, paying up front or spacing energy bills throughout the year. A budget plan is a popular option. With a budget plan contract, the heating company or utility estimates your annual use, based on past seasons' consumption, multiplies it by the cost of the fuel per unit, then divides it by 10 or 12 months. The budget plan locks the customer into that per-unit price range.

Or you can ride out the winter and pay as you go, hoping that the price of fuel doesn't go up.

Let's say you've locked in a rate of $4.29 per gallon of oil and use an average of 700 gallons per season. Your bill would be about $3,000 for this winter. That total is billed at about $250 a month from now until next September. The same kind of plans are available through many electrical, propane and natural gas providers.

Another option is to pay for the fuel for the entire season up front, a strategy that can save you as much as 5 percent, says Lou Polsinello III, vice president of Polsinello Fuels.

Telling consumers the best option is impossible, says Jim Denn, spokesman for the N.Y. Public Service Commission, which deals with natural gas and electricity, not heating oil or propane.

The energy market is like the stock market -- fluid and often unpredictable -- and impossible to fairly forecast, Denn said.

So a long-term contract may help you, but if prices go down, you could end up paying more than the market rate.

But locking in, rather than playing a Russian roulette with your heating bill, is a consumer's best bet, says Masood Samii, the chairman of the International Business department at Southern New Hampshire University and former chief economist for OPEC.

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