NaturePagan wrote:
I am using iCloud - I am paying for 50g right now, but don't want to use it at all. I want to get away from it not add more to it going into retirement soon on Social Security ONLY for our income which isn't enough as it is.
If your photos aren’t valuable to you, this whole problem is trivial.
If your photos are valuable, but you’re not so concerned about theft or loss or damage to your equipment, you can store those locally on your Mac.
If your photos are valuable and you’re concerned about theft or loss or hardware failures, then you will want backups, and preferably backups of all of or of your most important data stored elsewhere. iCloud is one way to do that, but there are others, such as storing photos on good-quality DVD media and transferring and storing those DVDs elsewhere. Or providing copies to a trusted friend or relative.
This is a decision only you get to make.
What to do?
Read the previously-linked article about moving your photos out of My Photo Stream.
Read this article about shutting off iCloud Photos: How to turn off iCloud Photos - Apple Support
Read this article about shutting off iCloud+: Downgrade or cancel your iCloud+ plan - Apple Support