Cooking at home saves you time if you do it right. A slow cooker, frozen meat, frozen veg, stock powder. Cook a batch and put into containers for the week. It’s not hard to develop a healthy, cheap, quick approach to eating. Most people find ways to keep justifying their existing opinions, that’s the real problem of poverty. It’s rare that people adopt an experimental approach to their problems to learn unexpected solutions. So to my mind, poor is more about being rigid, rather than a lack resources.

> You don’t have time to do those things if you are poor and working 2-3 jobs

I know multiple folks who did this. Poor people aren’t mentally deficient. (Often they’re sturdier than those of us who grew up comfortably enough.)

> unexpected expenses and cost of living increases destroy your budget a lot more than McDonald’s

This is correct. But it’s true for most Americans when we consider medical debt.

Budgeting and analyzing spending and risk is still sensible.

Most poor humans managed to store food for the winter prior to the industrial revolution avoid overeating and draining their stores. I'm sure the poor 2-3 job worker can meal prep with cheap easy meals.

> Properly budgeting and analyzing costs takes a lot of time

For family? Not really