The lack of option is definitely a education / culture thing.

I am personally terrible at cooking, and prefer to eat out, but still can cook and still am constantly scanning to find less expensive stuff to buy. It used to shock me how often people I knew used to eat out at delis and other places.

As time went by, I realized how much I owed to my parents, and my culture to drill into me how extravagant it was to eat out (also unhealthy - but I cared more about the $$$).

The funny thing is, growing up in India, I always thought that, unlike India, the US used to teach cooking home economic classes. It was surprising to see that that home economic classes were a thing of the past. Maybe the US needs to go back to the past.