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The Home Depot is partnering with the Army & Air Force Exchange Service (Exchange) to launch its tax-free offering of major appliances to military shoppers.
All active-duty service members, dependents, retirees, Department of Defense civilians and retirees, and honorably discharged veterans who have confirmed eligibility at ShopMyExchange.com can make tax-free online purchases from the Exchange through this program.
Military Money Manual Podcast Episode #80 Links
- Free 5-day course to maximize your travel benefits and learn all about military credit cards
- The Military Money Manual book
- Shopmyexchange.com
- MMM Article Home Depot Military Discount 2022 | Save 10% Online & In Store
Outline of Episode:
- Jamie and Spencer discuss the benefits offered by the AAFES and Home Depot partnership for tax free appliances
- How to get 10% military discount at Home Depot
Military Money Manual Podcast Episode #80 Transcript
[00:00:00] Jamie: Home Depot's new partnership with AAFES is a big win for military service members and their families. You can now buy Home Depot's appliances via the BX or PX, or the Exchange website tax free, and at a slight discount compared to Home Depot's in-store prices.
[00:00:37] Spencer: Hello, podcast listener Spencer Reese here from militarymoneymanual.com. Joined by my co-host Jamie.
Today we're talking about a new partnership between AAFES and the Home Depot.
Anyone eligible to shop at the AAFES BX or PX, including active duty, guard, reserve, veterans, retirees, and eligible dependents can now shop a collection of tax-free offerings of major appliances. We're talking here about washers, dryers, refrigerators, freezers, dishwashers, oven microwaves, and more will be available for purchase through the Home Depot's branded online page at shopmyexchange.com.
Jamie, what kind of benefits can military service members or others who are eligible to shop at the BX or PX expect out of this partnership?
[00:01:23] Jamie: So the one I'm most excited about is the better customer service because no one really thinks of great customer service and AAFES in the same sentence. Usually Home Depot is generally pretty good, a little bit better nationwide company, better supply chain logistics network and things like that.
I think most people will also be very excited about the tax free. I recently bought a washer dryer set. Cost me a little over $1,500. Where I live, it is a 10% sales tax, which is terrible, but that's $150 or so tax savings on future appliance purchases, and that's just for washer and dryer. Imagine if you're building a home or renovating your home, or you need all the appliances in your house.
This could be several hundred dollars of savings. Also, you do get a slight discount from Home Depot. It's only a 1% savings compared to what is in store, but it is nice to save a little bit. It might be 15, 20 bucks depending on what you're buying. Maybe $50 if you're buying a lot. Another nice thing is that it doesn't really take any extra work.
There's nothing to register for because most of our listeners probably already have an account at shopmyexchange.com, which is the website for the BX or PX, formerly known now as the Exchange. So they don't exclude the Air Force or Army there.
Another neat thing is if you're at some of the big bases, Home Depot is actually going to launch five appliance showrooms in some of the BXs and PXs around the continental United States.
These include Fort Moore, Georgia, Fort Cavazos, Texas. Hopefully I said that that's a new name. Joint base, San Antonio, Randolph, Texas, Dias Air Force Base, Texas and Fort Sill, Oklahoma. So some of these really large bases are getting an actual in-person appliance showroom in their AAFES. But the program is open to any military member or veteran retiree, like you said, anywhere in the continental United States, in addition to Oahu, Hawaii and Puerto Rico.
[00:03:15] Spencer: Hopefully they add some more OCONUS locations as well. Like I can imagine if you're at Ramstein or in Japan, you might wanna take advantage of this, but you would run into the problems with the electrical plugs being different. So I wonder if that's the LIMFAC there. They just want to distribute to places that they know they're going to be able to plug in the appliance and it's actually going to work.
[00:03:36] Jamie: I'm sure some of it maybe is where Home Depot already is. I don't think Home Depot is a store on Maui, but I know they are in Honolulu, so I wonder if their existing logistics network is already in place in these locations.
[00:03:48] Spencer: Those are some great benefits. Jamie, another thing that you mentioned earlier was that the appliances are gonna be fulfilled through the Home Depot network and then the customer service is also gonna be done by Home Depot.
So I think that's something I'm excited that the exchange has outsourced to a larger corporation to handle. The other thing is the exchanges have always sold major appliances, but I think the primary motivation here decides, Home Depot opens up a couple more customers is to provide better customer service to the military customers, especially in the delivery.
[00:05:57] Jamie: Spencer. Another thing I really like is that. In the next couple months here, summer 2023, they're actually gonna have inside of the exchange locations a mobile checkout system to help you browse Home Depot's inventory and buy an appliance.
So if you've ever seen one of those kiosks, to order your ribbon racks at the military, clothing and sales, I'm picturing something like that where you can browse through the tablet or the computer and look through the Home Depot inventory for major appliances and set up that delivery right there.
So tax free, 1% discount on the price. Better selection, better customer service, better delivery. All branches are eligible, all shop exchange customers, all you have to do if you don't already have an account is sign up on shopmyexchange.com. And then under the appliances you'll see a banner now for Home Depot, it's very easy to get to and start browsing.
[00:06:47] Spencer: Now, Jamie Home Depot already offers a 10% military discount. Does that apply to appliances? I have an article about that on my website that I’m going to have to update.
[00:06:56] Jamie: Oh, unfortunately it doesn't. Yeah, you might have to update that one, but the appliances are excluded at Home Depot and Lowe's actually from their 10% discount.
If you don't have that, by the way, for everything else you buy at Home Depot or Lowe's, the Home Depot one's pretty, both of them are easy, but the Home Depot ones specifically, you can register your Home Depot account via the Sheer ID verification system. And then when you go to check out, all you have to do is type in your phone number or scan the QR code in your Home Depot app when you're checking out in-store, and it can also be a link to your online account.
The other day we were at Home Depot buying packing supplies, bubble wrap and things like that, and all I did at self checkout was type in my phone number and it automatically applied the discount.
So those of you that know my phone number don't go stealing my identity for the 10% discount, it's not worth it.
[00:07:43] Spencer: And if you wanna learn more about this program, people can Google the Home Depot and shop my exchange and the shopmyexchange.com website has set up a page there explaining more about the service.
Jamie, anything else that you want to leave the listeners with?
[00:08:00] Jamie: So this episode is obviously a lot about Air Force and Army audience with the Exchange or the BX or the PX, but we also saw that Home Depot officials anticipate rolling out a similar program with the Navy Exchange, the NEX, or the Marine Corps Exchange later this year.
So you can expect to see a very similar process at the end of 2023 for our Navy and Marine Corps brothers and sisters. Hopefully that'll be just as good. If not, maybe better, but I bet it's probably going to be identical.
[00:08:31] Spencer: Awesome. Hopefully, listener, that will save you some money the next time that you have to go buy some appliances.
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We'll catch you in the next episode of the Military Money Manual podcast.