Using MyLowe's to track purchases and associate with different properties

[David Shapiro]

I've been playing around with MyLowe's which tracks your purchases at Lowe's. You can go back and see what items you've purchased. I make purchases at Lowe's for several different properties. As an investor I'm trying to accomplish two things 1) It makes it easier to assign costs to the appropriate property at the end of the month 2) Keep an inventory of what I've purchased. An example of how I see it being helpful: If after move out I see a tenant damaged a section of the floor, I can see exactly which flooring I bought last time and order more.

I'm curious if anybody has come up with a system to use this for multiple properties?

Two things I noticed. It looks like you can order multiple unique MyLowe's cards (not store credit cards). You could label one for each property.

You can set up a "Home Profile" and add different spaces. You could create a space and rename it for each property.

[Andrew Cordle]

I don't know much about Lowes System. 

But I use Home Depot, and they have a special app called "Pro Extra" where you can do everything that you are referring to above plus quite a bit more. Its a pretty intense app. 

Andrew

[Chuck W.]

I just switched from Home Depot to Lowes. Lowes beat Home Depot by almost 20% on a $10,000 material order. Lowes has a pre fund account that gets you a 5% discount on every purchase thru pre fund account. They are very accommodating and are giving me great service and free delivery. Good bye Home Depot !

[David Epstein]

Here's my system for multiple properties:  In my area, HD usually beats Lowes on most things.  I have been rehabbing and holding for five years now, and the best thing in my wallet is my HD Commercial credit card.  It allows me to do the Pro Rewards, as noted by Andrew Cordle above.  But the big winner is I just put a house name on a given purchase.  Then, when I pay the bill, I just pay each house's amount out of their respective checking accounts.  At the end of the year, I plug all those numbers into Quickbooks, and I have an easy to read report on what I've spent on each building.  (and QB numbers go easily into Turbo-tax, which is another huge time-saver.  I used to "import" to TT, but lately I just put in the numbers off of the QB report so that they go into the correct place on the tax forms)

   With regard to Chuck Wilson's post, I don't doubt it, but I do wonder what he was buying.  Each store has their sweet spots.  With HD, if I have a big reno coming up, I make a shopping list, then count on spending an entire day in HD taking down SKU numbers (or doing it online), and then making a "Bid-Room" to order as much of the job's materials as I can in one shot.  In addition, the prices in Bid Room go on for two or three weeks, and yields moderate to excellent savings.  The minimum purchase is 2,500.00 for Bid-Room, which is easy to spend.  The challenge is anticipating everything.  For plumbing, I often buy the whole job from Supply House.com (Formerly Pex-Supply).  This might take working with a plumber on the shopping list if you're less experienced, but the savings are huge.  Don't be afraid to buy bulk: you'll use it on future projects.   And if the plumber is getting the job, they'll usually be happy to help with the list, gratis, because it increases their efficiency.  

Increasingly, I use Amazon Prime for many materials.  The stuff comes to my door in two days.  It's amazing what you can find: sinks, smoke detectors, tools.  That, too, gives you a simple "reorder" option.  

Good luck!  

Dave

[David Epstein]

One more thing:  HD also has a 5 percent off the total deal with the Commercial card, but you have to remember to ask for it.  I always do.  

D

[Account Closed]

If you use QuickBooks you can assign income and expenses to each individual property, to each individual unit inside an apartment building.  All you do is choose the property you want to assign your transaction too.  It just doesn't get any better than that!

Nancy Neville

[Shawn Thom]

I do the same with my lowes. It's especially handy if I loose a receipt. Logging into Home Depot app gets you the same thing.

In my area HD and lowes have the exact same prices. I like lowes return process better where I can just give them my credit card and the find the purchase. No receipt needed. HD you can look up your account but I have hit and miss results.

For lowes I buy 10% coupons off the internet for about $2.50. They can be used on purchases up to $10,000.

[Bill Coleman]

I shopped Lowes and THD at the same time for different materials. THD said that to get the pro discounts, I would have to submit the order to the vendors for discounting which could take a few days. So I had a cart loaded with stuff and another order on the back end, and I could not take my items with me until they heard from the vendors.

Then within a few hours, I shopped the same way at Lowes. Some in-store items and some delivery. Lowes was able to get the contractor discount from their vendors right then and there and I could leave with my items.

THD discount: $200

Lowes Discount: $1800

Same approximate order sizes. If I am doing a large material order, I go to Lowes. No contest.

[David Shapiro]

@Andrew Cordle Good to know, I'll check out the HD app.

@David Epstein Thanks for the tips. I'll look into the volume pricing. Do you get 5% off in addition to the volume discount when using your HD commercial credit card?

@Shawn Thom  Buying coupons online, good idea!

@Bill Coleman Is that Lowe's equivalent to the volume pricing/bid room that David was referring to?

[Padma Mody]

@Shawn Thom Which website you use to buy the discount coupon?

[Shawn Thom]

Originally posted by @Padma Mody:

@Shawn Thom Which website you use to buy the discount coupon?

http://lowescoupondepot.com/

I'm not affiliated with them in any way, but I do buy a lot of their coupons.

[Padma Mody]

@Shawn Thom Thanks for the link. Currently we are rehabbing single file home and found 20*20 porcelain tiles for .88 cents

 I will sure use this use when I buy this tiles fro 1200 sq ft area

[Bill Coleman]

@David Shapiro  Yes this is Lowe's equivalent to the bid room at THD. Works way better and gives you a much better discount. There's no way I would go to THD for large purchases. 

[Bill Coleman]

But, you can find some really smokin deals at THD so that might be worth a trip for a couple single items that are unbeatable in price. 

[David Shapiro]

Thanks everybody for the replies and tips!