Short Cut (ish) for Cooking?

I love to cook and bake. I made my older son's 19th birthday cake out of a Betty Crocker box mix. I can bake from scratch, but I really like taking short cuts. I guess I don't really consider it a short cut since I'm still taking the time to mix everything together and bake in the oven. A real shortcut would be to drive to Costco and get one of their cakes already made and decorated (I've done that too!).

Anyway, I've also used the cookie mixes from a bag, cake frosting, cake decorating tubes,and muffin mixes. I'm busy and the time savings are awesome! I really like the holiday cookies that come already cut out in shapes, so all you need to do is bake them. Every time I've made sugar cookies from scratch (real scratch), I can never roll them out good enough to cut them in shapes.

I want to know what are your favorite short cuts for cooking? I haven't made a biscuit from scratch in a year!