I have this argument with my wife often. I like to cook, and for me cooking is more than taking frozen meatballs and dumping them into a pan full of jar pasta sauce. I would rather make the sauce, maybe have some meatballs made in advance. My wife seems to think that pre-made stuff or mixes are the way to go. I would rather just make pancakes scratch, which isn’t hard, where she would rather I just open the mix, add water, and make the food. But I do agree that having a frozen lasagna is better than taking the full effort when I just want to get dinner going. So where are your eat the pre-made vs make it from scratch?
I only buy krusteaz for pancakes. I don’t really think the amount of effort it would take to hand-make a similar batter would be worth it, nor would it taste remarkably better.
Though, for actual food, I have the same sentiment as you. I like to cook and experiment, and I have a fairly easy time adjusting things by taste, but I don’t have the time/energy/money to be doing everything from scratch.