I knew a guy who lived off 1/3 of his salary of ~40k. when you are single you can cut housing expenses by getting a few house-mates. Housing is the main expense for most people.

That was in Idaho

Here in the valley I make a typical dev salary and have 2 dependents but still save 1k, invest 1k and put 1k down against my principal every month.

Tech jobs pay well and if you can't easily save large amounts of money as a developer you'd better be having a whole lot of fun.