It doesn't matter how cheap or easy it is. It's easily an hour of prep work followed by an hour of cooking. Add in dishes/cleanup and you're at nearly 3 hours for the simple "baked pasta dish". Now go shop for that and make it after finishing your shift at your second day job. After 14 hrs of working and 3 hrs preparing/serving/cleaning dinner you can go straight to sleep and get 7 hours until the next day starts all over again.

Compare that to boiling water, throwing macaroni noodles in for 8 minutes, and stirring in a "cheese" packet. I can tell you which one I'm going with after a work day at two separate blue-collar jobs.