Tracy Davidson

Amid this year’s excitement about electric deregulation in Pennsylvania, some customers might have wondered if they also could choose their natural gas supplier. Short answer: They can. For more than a decade, alternative natural gas suppliers have been free to market to all utility customers in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Here’s the rub: Though the [...]

You’ve done your paperwork—now it’s time to celebrate. National chains and local shops throughout the country are giving away food, massages, and even HBO on April 18, this year’s tax deadline. Here’s your guide to the best tax day deals: Snacks: MaggieMoo’s: The ice cream chain is offering free mini ice cream sundaes between 3 [...]

Dream Town Realty, a full-service real estate office in Chicago, is offering $1,000 cash at closing to buyers or sellers who purchase a $25 Groupon coupon. It is believed to be the first brokerage in the country to try Groupon. Less than 12 hours after the offer was presented, it had almost reached its 50 person minimum [...]

Since electric competition took off on Jan. 1 in Peco Energy Co. territory, more than 260,000 customers have switched suppliers, according to the utility. About 16 percent of Peco’s 1.6 million customers, including most of its large industrial customers, have switched to alternative suppliers, according to Cathy Engel Menendez, spokeswoman for the Philadelphia utility. Nearly [...]

The IRS has announced that there is $1.1 billion in previous unclaimed tax refunds waiting for nearly 1.1 million people who did not file a federal income tax return for 2007. The IRS estimates that half of these potential 2007 refunds amount to at least $640. To get your money, you have to be proactive. The [...]

As retailers increasingly turn to free shipping to lure customers, L.L. Bean is upping the ante by waiving shipping fees all the time, with no minimum order, putting pressure on rivals. Effective Friday, the outdoors and clothing retailer joins Zappos.com in offering year-round, no-strings-attached free shipping, going against the grain in an industry accustomed to [...]

Tuesday is National Pancake Day and IHOP wants you to celebrate with a free short stack of buttermilk pancakes. That’s right, from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. IHOPs around the area (and nation) will give you free pancakes in hopes that you will voluntarily donate to the Children’s Miracle Network. The goal is raise a [...]

The imminent arrival of the dreaded “patent cliff” has been haunting the pharmaceutical industry for years, and it’s finally here. With patents on many blockbuster drugs about to expire, an estimated $250 billion in sales are at risk between now and 2015, according to data from EvaluatePharma. Once drugs lose patent protection, lower-price generics quickly [...]

At a time when commodity and fuel costs are rising dramatically, Wegmans Food Markets announced this week it will not increase prices through 2011 on 40 products that families buy most, to help customers and employees manage their grocery costs. “We considered the importance of an item to a family when choosing our list of [...]

As colleges and universities begin setting tuition for the upcoming academic year, a few schools are already touting their efforts to keep costs down. Last Thursday, the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia announced a 3.9% tuition increase, its “second smallest … in 43 years.” A day earlier, The University of the South in Sewanee, Tenn., [...]