Please talk me out of going back to ready meals

just keep trying, I'm still tweaking meals and learning things and I've been cooking since I was around 9 -ish years old and I'm 52 now so don't give up. I find macaroni is rubbish for freezing so what I do is make a white sauce and freeze that instead, grate the cheese and pop that in a box the fridge. All you have to do is get the sauce out in the morning before you go to work,then when you get in,heat up in a pan over a low heat, stir in the grated cheese bit by bit,you can do this while the pasta is cooking & then just mix the two together.

When you cook a meal make notes of what you did,for instance if there's too much, either freeze or make a note to scale it down for next time. Eventually you will find your way and make shortcuts & prep that suit you better & save you time so they become second nature and not so much of a chore,consider it a challenge that you will master!

If you find it overwhelming just try making one meal a week that you really fancy until you've mastered it and are happy to cook and eat it and then try another one.when I was working I always prepped whatever I could the night before & it made things a lot easier and quicker too

The more you do something, the better at it you get. No one can ride a bike straight away, you've to fall off a couple of times first. Don't feel so disheartened. Today I did salmon with new potatoes, broccoli and this lentil thing. Oh my that lentil thing was salty. It's was edible, but so salty. It didn't ruin the meal, I'm not the worst cook ever. It was just one element of one dish that wasn't great and I'll remember next time to leave out the salt if I'm using a stock cube!

In our family we often laugh at each others kitchen disasters. Dad's Boston baked beans is most notorious and sets us off laughing. He used a TIN of molasses instead of a tsp. That was inedible. But the man can make a souffle so well... Except when he forgot the cheese! Ahaha. So really, don't feel it's just you, we all have mistakes and meals that don't go to plan.

Also, are the meals you have been making homemade things you like to eat or things you think you should eat? That would be where I would start if I was going from convenience to cooking. And the more practice you get the quicker you will be. I was able to make a batch of scones whilst making dinner and the whole thing took 35 minutes. I'd never be able to do that in the past. I'd have done salmon, potatoes and just the veg. Which is actually really easy. Prepare new potatoes and set them off to boil, add a steamer on top for broccoli etc after about 5 minutes. Then 5 minutes before the end put the salmon skin side down in a hot, dry pan, turn the heat down a bit. You can see it cooking up the side, when it's about half done flip it. It takes hardly any time or effort.

Re washing up, I hate it too, it really only takes 20 minutes at most. I'm pretty lazy, and I will wash up yesterday's dinner stuff, today's breakfast and lunch stuff while today's dinner stuff is cooking - unless it's fish, that I will always do the same day. It means I'm washing up while dinner is cooking, I mean I'll be in there anyway, I may as well kill two birds with one stone. It doesn't work for everyone, but it works for us.

Another quick low effort thing, chunky cut some Potatoes and veg (courgette, butternut squash, peppers etc), chuck in the bottom of a roasting tin or dish, top with chicken thighs, season, chuck in oven, do yesterday's washing up! (might just be me! Haha)

Could you spend a couple of hours on a Sunday prepping for the week ahead? Plate up some meals up until Wednesday, then have a ready meal on Thursday and a jacket potato or oven chips meal with fish or burger or pizza on a Friday.

Pop up, you've not actually said anything to help the OP, just preached at them and probably given them a guilt trip. You could have offered some motivation or ideas as well at least.

Op, I'd cut the chicken up with some veg and stir fry it- matter of minutes. You can even buy the ready prepped stir fry veg

Slow cooker works well for cheaper cuts of beef/ lamb etc if you eat them, and product usually freezes well.

Nothing wrong with a salad, piece of nice bread or a bit of cooked pasta, cooled and some cheese or ham as a meal if you like it.

Rice is fast to cook (15 min max, depending on type unless of course it's brown rice) and really isn't that hard. Add stir fry, defrosted chilli etc