Depends on the person, a few years ago I spent over $10k in a year on other people[1], I bought people iPhones, TVs, laptops, flights, all manner of things. I was only making $100k/year at the time. There are people making 5x that who would never spend that much money on other people... it's entirely plausible someone could be making an average tech salary and have no problem arbitrarily handing out "expensive" things if they don't really care about money.

[1] I got over this awful habit and no longer do it, thankfully.