Savings before spending...

At our Sunday school class I heard something thought provoking. It was a concept which had never been made this clear to me. Here is the idea..

The typical American lifestyle goes like this:
Spend->Pay Bills->Save->Give

This leaves little money for saving or giving. I would say the disciplined and well instructed Christian has moved Giving to #1 and maybe Pay Bills to #2 to something like this:
Give->Pay Bills->Spend->Save.

But, the idea was to move the Saving up, especially while you are young and have time on your side. So, it would look like this:
Give->Save->Pay Bills->Spend.

That is absolutely logical when you think about the importance of most of those things...but do we actually do that? I know this is something I have struggled with...but it has me rethinking and relooking at our budget. Can we not have a catch all leftover savings and spend on things even like cable TV at the end? How can we transform our lifestyle and spending to accomodate that? Its an interesting challenge we should all aim to become. More on this soon...