I live in Poland, which is more expensive as Romania (as far as I know), but close enough. My first salary as a developer was 750USD net per month and I was abl

I live in Poland, which is more expensive as Romania (as far as I know), but close enough. My first salary as a developer was 750USD net per month and I was able to live out of it easily, partying a lot and not cooking much (and I'm a smoker). His assumptions were not too unrealistic, he just didn't factor out additional costs and should have had bigger margin of safety. You shouldn't compare money like this between countries, differences are big and Romania is on the bottom of EU when it comes to income (though they are currently developing super fast, so it will definitely change - good for them).