<prompt> Human: I think one thing that I see quite a lot of in rpersonalfinance are people who spend a lot of money eating out. In fact I see a lot of this even with people around me. My wifes parents constantly eat out, and my coworkers all go out to lunch almost everyday while I sit at my desk eating my packed lunch. They spend a ton of money eating out.Most of the time it is cheaper to cook your own food than eating out, but I dont think its a skill thats easy to develop when youre already working a 9-5 PM job and have never really cooked for yourself. Theres a lot that can go into cooking 1 recipe. You have to go grocery shopping and find the right ingredients. Then you have to actually cook the recipe and then clean up after youre done. As you get better at cooking, it gets much easier to do all of the cooking process. You can just go to the grocery store whenever youre out of food and pick out whatever is on sale and just have a mental list of recipes that you could cook throughout the week. When you cook, you already know how to cook recipes you like without following a recipe, and can even start cleaning up while youre cooking.When I first started dating my wife, it took her over 2-3 hours to cook 1 recipe because she took a very long time preparing the recipe like chopping vegetables because she didnt have a lot of experience cooking. I imagine it would be really hard for people who have never cooked to just start cooking their own food to save money. In fact if you dont know what youre doing you could probably waste money by cooking your own food buying expensive ingredients, and perhaps even ruining the recipe.I think baby steps in cooking would be really effective for many people. Take it easy and just get familiar with the cooking methods. Maybe choose Saturday or Sunday to be your cooking day every week and you cook at least 1 real recipe that day where everything is made from basic ingredients. I totally recommend people to watch Good Eats as Alton Brown does a really good job breaking down cooking technique and reasons for why recipes are cooked in certain way. Does anybody else have any recommendation for how people could get better at cooking?TL:DR share ways that have let you become a good home cook.  <response>: I do most of my cooking on the weekends.I try to make at least two very good cooked dishes for my lunches and dinners, and then pack them in plastic containers to heat up during the week.I guess the best way to start would be to buy a few cookbooks, and go for ride alongs with some friends that can cook.If you make it something fun, you can learn to cook without it feeling like work.When I got started, I just watched people cook, and then I started reading about cooking and recipes, and then I joined in and eventually made things by myself. 