We cook almost every meal we eat, last time we had a meal out was a week ago because friends were in town. For the cost of that meal, we could’ve made at least 24 individual servings at home (we know our average serving costs).

It took some time, and started with cooking dinners (especially on weekends), which produced leftovers that can be used for lunches. Which frees up time to plan and prep the next thing.

I’ve largely eaten the same breakfast for 10 years now, because it’s easy, fast, and addresses some health issues (diabetes in family).

Breakfast takes 15 minutes to make, and you’d think it came from a diner.

Our recipe book has an index for dishes that work well as leftovers, one for fast weeknight meals, one for things that can be frozen, etc, so we can plan better. On any given day we have a dozen meals worth of frozen, but home-made dishes that just go in microwave or convection oven with minimal other work.

We also have a meal calendar (like you had in grade school for lunches), so we can work ahead a little (mostly for days where there are appointments that can interfere).

It can be done, it just requires prioritizing. I stopped playing games on my pc, we don’t turn on the TV until the day’s tasks are done (and I mean everything, including prepping for tomorrow), and I usually do some planning while watching TV at the end of the day.

If nothing else, even doing a big cook one day a week and freezing portions will give you breathing room. So you feel like you can do a little more later. The alternative is to stay where you are, spend 5-10x as much for food that is nutritionally mostly empty.

When I was working two (or 3) jobs, my roommate and I would work together to make big meals, package them up for the next day, then do it again as soon as we had time. That way we always had something in the fridge ready to go.