Does everyone pay £90 a year for this?

[FrannyScraps]

For Microsoft office package?

I've just got a new laptop for work things, I'm self employed. I can't remember what I did for my desktop.

I can't really do anything on it unless I pay but it's not really a bill I ever see people talk about, along with McAfee for viruses, it's getting to be really expensive.

Nope but work provide my laptop and I’m sure they do

I use Libreoffice, but I assume it hasn't got all Microsoft's bells and whistles...

Yes, plus £16 a month for adobe

Bin McAfee. Junk.

AVG free has kept me safe for many years.

It's irritating, isn't it? It seems to be the way of the world: to get everybody to pay every month/year to subscribe to everyday things, rather than paying a one-off fee to buy it forever.

It is handy when it works (WHEN it works!) across multiple devices in the household, but it's still taking away people's choices.

They come up with all kinds of excuses as to why it's supposedly better for you, but it still boils down to you having to pay them each month/year to rent their software and never actually being able to own it.

Yes I pay for MS Office for my personal laptop. I also pay for Malwarebytes (much better than McAfee/Norton) and NordVPN.

Worse. I pay £5.99 a month. You've just reminded I have this payment going out of two accounts and need to figure it out.

I get mine through work. Libre office is an alternative

Don’t you claim this on your tax return? I am self employed and I claim it every year. I have adobe too but not McAfee.

Yes I pay this too.

We bought an old version of office from a 'partner retailer' so a one off payment (£60). We don't get the endless useless updates but for what we need it's much better than the 360 subscription you now have to have otherwise...

I just use google docs as tend to just need a word program and occasionally sheets and windows defender, what I pay in adobe subscription though makes me weep 😅

Is McAfee in any way connected to the endless scam email bombardment - not just 'keenly' advertising it but basically scaring and threatening you if you don't get it?

I've had so many 'warnings' about how dangerous it will be if I don't 'renew' my 'expired' protection, when I've never bought their product; and never ever would considering they market it in a scammy way (or are powerless to stop scammers from assuming their identity in that way).

£5.99pm isn’t worse than £90pa.

OP you can log onto your Microsoft account and opt out of the AI bit of the subscription for next year, that should bring the price down to £60pa.

But if you don’t heavily use the Office apps and don’t need the 1TB cloud storage you can just cancel and use the free versions online or use an alternative.

You can buy Microsfot Office outright, I just pay for extra cloud storage for photos and files

5.99 a month and a similar amount for Google workspace too

I remember buying Microsoft Office 2007 through a home use work program for £30. It is still what I'm using on my very old Windows 7 laptop. Hoping when I upgrade the laptop I can still use my Office 2007 disc in install it?!

Libreoffice does everything I want and its free. I don't have any anti-virus. Windows Defender is good enough. Never had a virus.

Do you still have the download link and licence number for the package on your desktop? Could you load this on to your laptop?

I pay for the family one so that me, DH & DS can all have it on our laptops.

I'm not sure, I don't even remember having to pay for it but I must have done.

And to add, I'm not making a reoccurring payment for my desktop so I've no idea at all!

Most laptops don't have a disc drive now, you could buy one separately or use LibreOffice, it does the same thing.

Yep. I pay £8 a month for 5 devices.

Why is £5.99 a month worse than £90 a year?!