I've been doing this for over 30 years. I've iterated to this. The first iteration was not managing my money at all.
The watershed was when I had my first real success with my own business, combined with having my first child (both happened at about the same time). That forced me to face the reality that some sort of money management was essential, and through a couple of years of experimentation, I settled on this as a balance that worked well for me.
"Pay yourself first" is something I stole from the classic book "The Incredible Secret Money Machine" by Don Lancaster. That, by the way, is the only business book I've read that I found real value in.
