Another thing to check if you or a family member is a US Veteran is that Apple's veterans' discount is a little better than education in most cases. They're not VERY different, so use whichever one you qualify for. The veteran discount IS verified through id.me, but the verification is easy, and it doesn't matter when you served. My dad was in the military in the 1960s, and Apple is happy to grant the 10% discount.
That generally beats B&H and the like on higher-end and CTO models, while B&H can be cheaper on lower-end stock configurations (or if they end up with a bunch of previous generation models).
Another way of knocking some significant cost off of a Mac, if you live in the right place, is that, legally, a transaction where something is ordered online and picked up in store is taxed at the STORE's address. There are five states with no sales tax. Two of them don't really help unless you live there - Montana has no Apple Stores, and Alaska has one, but there's nothing much close to Anchorage that isn't also in Alaska.
The other three, however, are useful. Oregon has three Apple Stores, all in the Portland metro area. They're quite a ways from anywhere in California, but they are not terribly far from a lot of places in Washington State. Delaware has one Apple Store, which is quite close to Philadelphia and Baltimore, and might be worth it (especially on an expensive Mac or a Vision Pro) from New York or DC. New Hampshire has three Apple Stores, all within 20 miles of the Massachusetts border (I wonder why
). One of them is so close to the Massachusetts border that part of the parking lot is IN Massachusetts (but tax isn't charged on where you're parked when you buy a Mac). They are also not hugely far from much of Vermont and from southern Maine.
