The average software engineer salary in California is about $150k (https://www.indeed.com/career/software-engineer/salaries/CA https://www.indeed.com/career/sof

The average software engineer salary in California is about $150k (https://www.indeed.com/career/software-engineer/salaries/CA https://www.indeed.com/career/software-engineer/salaries/CA), which works out to about $100k after tax (https://www.forbes.com/advisor/income-tax-calculator/california/?deductions=0&filing=single&income=150000&ira=0&k401=0 https://www.forbes.com/advisor/income-tax-calculator/califor...), or about $8k a month. If you're living somewhere where you struggle to find a studio apartment for less than $2k a month, you probably don't need a car. You can easily feed a single person for $20 a day, =about $600 a month, even if you don't cook. 75% is a stretch, but it's entirely possible to save more than half your salary. You might not want to, but then a lot of people don't want to abandon their giant NPM dependency trees either.