Microsoft 365 Personal price hike on renewal!

aries1

I should explain that I am not very tech savvy being of the "older generation" so if I'm honest I find it all very confusing!

Microsoft has emailed me to advise that our Microsoft 365 Personal due for renewal on January 4th is increasing from £59.99 a year to £84.99 !! I really cant afford to keep paying this as we in fact only use Word and nothing else.

If I explain our circumstances perhaps you could advice us what would best suit our needs please? I do hope you will have patience and forgive any poor explanation on my part.

There is just me and my husband using one laptop with Windows 11 and we dont mind sharing Word.

I use Word to write a book I have been working on for years and I have over 80 chapters saved as Word documents ( illustrations and text on these). I do need to be able to go back and edit these chapters which some free Word equivalents do not allow.
It is also imperative that I do not lose these chapters by not renewing my current Microsoft 365. I have about another 10 chapters to write and I really do need to continue in the same Word  format I am familiar with.

The only other thing I will use Word for is the occasional letter to companies etc.

My husband uses Word solely to write Estimates to his customers and also some letters.

I have tried using the internet for advice for advice and it has come up with the following :

"Some websites sell Microsoft Office very cheaply because they’re reselling old or unused business licences. These can work at first — but they’re not always fully legitimate, and Microsoft can sometimes deactivate them later."

Is this true? I ask because there are some cheap offers on Groupon that I was considering. 

I would be most grateful if anyone can help me and offer advice.

Many thanks

MattMattMattUK

aries1 said:

I should explain that I am not very tech savvy being of the "older generation" so if I'm honest I find it all very confusing!

Microsoft has emailed me to advise that our Microsoft 365 Personal due for renewal on January 4th is increasing from £59.99 a year to £84.99 !! I really cant afford to keep paying this as we in fact only use Word and nothing else.

If I explain our circumstances perhaps you could advice us what would best suit our needs please? I do hope you will have patience and forgive any poor explanation on my part.

There is just me and my husband using one laptop with Windows 11 and we dont mind sharing Word.

I use Word to write a book I have been working on for years and I have over 80 chapters saved as Word documents ( illustrations and text on these). I do need to be able to go back and edit these chapters which some free Word equivalents do not allow.
It is also imperative that I do not lose these chapters by not renewing my current Microsoft 365. I have about another 10 chapters to write and I really do need to continue in the same Word  format I am familiar with.

The only other thing I will use Word for is the occasional letter to companies etc.

My husband uses Word solely to write Estimates to his customers and also some letters.

I have tried using the internet for advice for advice and it has come up with the following :

"Some websites sell Microsoft Office very cheaply because they’re reselling old or unused business licences. These can work at first — but they’re not always fully legitimate, and Microsoft can sometimes deactivate them later."

Is this true? I ask because there are some cheap offers on Groupon that I was considering. 

I would be most grateful if anyone can help me and offer advice.

Many thanks

You can use the web based version of Word (as well as Excel and PowerPoint) for free, that would appear to be your best option.

Neil_Jones

The Office price increase was announced back in February as a load of AI stuff has been added to it:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2025/02/microsoft-365-price-hike/

You can switch your plan to Classic as per the instructions on the link above, though whether this still applies 10 months down the line I can't say.

You can get Office licences from other places, I have never paid full price.  Amazon has them regularly as part of Prime Day, Black Friday etc, sometimes half price, and sometimes for 15 months if you buy some other bundled software with them (typically anti-virus like Norton or McAfee, but you don't have to use that).  Think I got last 30  months worth for about £84.

flaneurs_lobster

Two quick things

Try 

https://word.cloud.microsoft/ 

free Word online - you need a Microsoft login (@hotmail or @outlook email address) which you should have as a MS365 user. Try loading up one of your existing documents.

Please confirm that your book is backed up to at least one other medium and it isn't just on your laptop.

flaneurs_lobster

aries1 said:

I have tried using the internet for advice for advice and it has come up with the following :

"Some websites sell Microsoft Office very cheaply because they’re reselling old or unused business licences. These can work at first — but they’re not always fully legitimate, and Microsoft can sometimes deactivate them later."

Is this true? I ask because there are some cheap offers on Groupon that I was considering. 

I would be most grateful if anyone can help me and offer advice.

Many thanks

There's a recent thread about "cheap" MS licence deals (including those via Groupon) 

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6639373/groupon-microsoft-key

SiliconChip

Neil_Jones said:

The Office price increase was announced back in February as a load of AI stuff has been added to it:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2025/02/microsoft-365-price-hike/

You can switch your plan to Classic as per the instructions on the link above, though whether this still applies 10 months down the line I can't say.

I can confirm that it certainly works for 365 Family as I did it this week in advance of my renewal date next month, so I'd expect it to be the same for 365 Personal.

victor2

There's always LibreOffice, which is free and has a Word equivalent system and will work with existing doc/docx files. 
Or you can buy MS Office 2021 or 2024 with a lifetime license from the likes of Groupon, Amazon etc. for less than the 365 annual fee.
You can even buy MS Home direct from Microsoft for £120.

mta999

If all you are doing is using Microsoft Word to write a book and invoices then try a copy of Word 2007 professional - you can get it from eBay for about 14.99

Vitor

The answer really depends if the OP is knowingly using OneDrive to sync copies of the book chapter to cloud storage in which case Microsoft 365 without CoPilot AI would be best.

If the OP is using just their laptop and has some other way of backing-up the chapters of the book, I'd suggest buying Office Home & Student 2021 for a one-off £120

Grumpy_chap

aries1 said:

My husband uses Word solely to write Estimates to his customers and also some letters.

One thing that might help mitigate the cost to you is of your husband claims the fee as a business expense.
Obviously, if you have done that previously, you will still feel the same percentage impact.