this post was submitted on 30 Mar 2025
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I've taken the next step in reducing Microsoft's presence in my life: I've just notified my mother that I'm cancelling my subscription at the next renewal and she will be back on the free plan.
It is not much of a sacrifice as I still have full access to all the programs through both work and uni, but I won't be paying them (which was primarily for my cloud storage). I might look at LibreOffice at some point, but the main thing I use is a complicated spreadsheet for my budget and it is highly likely something will break if I try it in a different program.
LIbre office is good. It can do everything Office can but the layout is a little different so you may need to just find where some options are. It's good to have Office in some form available as a backup
Take a look at Softmaker Office. It's not free, but it's loads cheaper than Microsoft. Home version is $50/year or $5/month. They have a free trial so you can have a play with it and see whether it'll break your spreadsheet.
I've only used it a little (I have MS Office through work stuff), but I found it to be very usable.
You can load the spreadsheet in libre office and check it out for free. Load up a copy in case it fucks with the original and ruins your life.
That's the plan at some point. But as I do have access to microsoft office without needing to pay for it, so I'm not in a rush. I have some stupidly complicated formulas and conditional formatting in there, so it's highly likely that something won't translate across. I want to have plenty of time to play around with it when I do give it a try.