I've always been in the mindset of paying off my debt before I worry about putting money in savings. It just makes the most sense to me. I've always had pretty meager savings, but hardly any debt for the better part of my adult life. When I say savings though, I don't mean investments. Those are totally separate and those either come out before tax or they are paid just like any other bill I would normally pay.
There is interestingly a difference between men and women in this regard, with women saving more, but investing less. Over the space of years, it makes a big difference for passive income.
This is the way to do it. It would be nice to have more basic automated services to set these things up. I know they exist, but I haven't used one.
I have two or three of them going into different areas. It would sometimes be nice if all my investments were in one area, but I like the idea of diversifying. Even though many of them probably hold the same companies. Automated bank services make it really easy to just set the expense and forget it.