is it possible to migrate this to an independent VB project which includes all the prices that I need but does not need Excel to open / close?
it would require you to have vb6 or vb.net
you could store you data elsewhere to an excel sheet, so that you would not be dependent on excel
choices could be text file of some type or a database
code in vb6 would be almost the same, where as vb.net would require some conversion, but as you are only learning, better to learn the new version (vb.net) the express edition is free to download and use, not the case with vb6 which you would have to find and purchase some where