If we're talking about low balled figures, I guess we need to consider the income side of the equation as well. The original question depends a good deal on what kind of job you're doing in the Bay Area. If it's someone coming to the Bay Area to work for Google/Facebook or similar, the figure I used is way too low, for example.

"A decent 1BR" - It all depends on the definition of decent. I pay $2k for a 1BR walking distance to Redwood City downtown/Caltrain.

But forget about renting an apartment, if you want to save and you're single, having roommates allows you to rent in the Peninsula for much less than $2k/mo.

Also, I added $300 discretionary spending which lets you to cover some of the things you described, and you're left with $8k at the end of the year.

Can you easily save $50k while spending $3k on rent+utilities to live in a fancy apartment in the Peninsula ? Maybe not, but you certainly don't need to be "eating garbage dumped by grocery stores".