I'm a good cook now, but when I was first learning I spent a lot of time and effort trying to find good recipes that didn't seem to difficult, too expensive, to

I'm a good cook now, but when I was first learning I spent a lot of time and effort trying to find good recipes that didn't seem to difficult, too expensive, too unhealthy, etc. There was a lot to learn! I think a lot of things seem easy in hindsight like that. A lot of recipes didn't go into enough detail for a total newbie. "Brown the meat". Easy now a days, but when I started that meant I had to go down this rabbit hole of figuring out how to do that correctly. In the past few years I had to teach my SO to cook and just properly browning ground beef and chopping it into small bits took a few rounds to get right on his own. What does it really look like when it's "done"? What size should each piece be? Yes, overall it's definitely going to pay off(even just after a month or two), but I think it's easy to forget there's still a decent barrier to starting. I ate a lot of burnt chicken when I first moved out. :P It took a while to afford the pots, the pans, and eventually the thermometer to fix that vs just eating the cheap banquet meals / boxed food.