I'm living in a house anyway. I'm not paying myself. Appliances last decades. It would cost me money to drive to a restaurant. With rare exceptions (e.g. high end kitchen you don't use much and eating out really cheaply) there's no world where the costs of preparing meals at home are higher than eating out every meal.

When going to a restaurant you should include transport costs and time wasted with transport and waiting. Cooking at home can be an efficient pipeline where you have full control of inputs while saving money and time. I was frustrated because I wanted to pay for convenience but in my case I found it to be non-convenient.