I now have my official spending numbers for 2008 (as a percentage of after-tax budget):

Retirement 27%
CC debt 15%
Rent 16%
Food 11%
Hobbies 8%
Clothing 6%
Utilities 5%
Medical 5%
Insurance 3% (doesn't include employer-benefit insurance)
Personal Care 3%
Transportation 2%
Fitness 2%
Gifts 2%
Household 2%

All of those percentages are pretty good, but my income has become high enough that several of the absolute amounts were kind of silly for a single person. Since I was clearly saving enough, I won't let myself feel bad about it -- saving 42% of after-tax income is pretty fantastic (I count paying off credit card balances in with the savings). But this year I am going to budget and spend more mindfully, so I can save up for that down payment while still investing enough in my retirement.

When I find out how the medical stuff will work (still kind of up in the air, due to stupid slow underwriting), I will know what I can actually save, besides retirement.

That's a great summary.
This year I plan on spending more mindfully as well. I'm also like you in that I have one year of budgeting under my belt. This weekend I plan to sort through it and figure out how much I spent on everything. It's going to be eye-opening. Not in a bad way, just in a way that I've never seen it before. I always save first, then pay bills, and if I have leftover money, it goes wherever I want. That's not very good considering I could be saving for *shrug* something.

Right! Though I wasn't really budgeting, just tracking expenses really well.

My *shrug* something fund is the house down payment fund. In ING, it is named "Pony."

One advantage of saving before budgeting is that the "savings" numbers I have really take the sting out of the "stupid expenses" numbers I have.

HA!!HA!! I like Pony.

I posted in the other thread about going to Superbowl, so I guess that's why I'm saving. I would also like to go to Brazil though, but I would like to have a mate to tag along. We'll see where that goes.

I hear ya on the stupid expense sting. That also made me laugh, but I think it's definitely justified if your savings comes first.

Guess I should stop procrastinating. Later.