I don't see how any of that stops someone from "making stir fry with chicken breast/thighs, frozen veggies, and rice" as OP put it. Maybe the chicken is the most expensive part of that. What does your retirement account or mattress have to do with taking a few minutes to cook some veggies and rice?
Because it's not "just a few minutes". It's the time to learn how to make it well; it's the cooking equipment to make it well, consistently; it's the navigation of an ever-shifting retail environment with way too much choice and featuring the kind of sensory input meant to overload your decision-making abilities, just to get the ingredients; it's the way that poor sleep (mattress) also affects those decisions; it's the way that financial precarity means juggling concerns of the now with concerns of the future (retirement), and how that kind of anxiety also short-circuits your decision-making; it's knowing that eating "chicken and frozen veggies and rice" for every meal is going to leave you malnourished in short order, too, but that because the internet rando who's more focused on balancing a silver spoon on his nose than the points of discussion at hand will ALWAYS find fault in what you do (if he cares at all), maybe throwing all of that stress out the window and ordering Subway is the right call after all. Your inability to "see" doesn't preclude what I talked about from being there and material and true. And they are.
And for the record, I cook, but I only have time to because I'm unemployed.