You could easily do that in the USA as well. Median income is $35K and that’s before taxes and without a corporate shell to transform some of the larger living expenses into corporate pre-tax deductions.
In a lot of the country, 125k is a lot of money, easily enough to live 2 years or more.
To answer a sibling comment since we can’t nest any deeper: so long as you’re not on the west coast with its decades long housing undersupply, small towns almost anywhere in the country are pretty affordable. This even includes parts of the otherwise expensive northeast.
In particular a lot of college towns offer a great mix of good quality of life with very affordable living.
It's a little more complicated than that, but mostly, away from the coasts and famous cities (Chicago, Austin, etc.), most of middle America is pretty cheap -- by American standards. It's still a lot more expensive than most of the world, obviously. But there are lots of places you could live reasonably comfortably for 2-3 years on $125k. Hell, there are a lot of places you could buy a house for $80k, and $45k buys a lot of food and internet. ;-)
I can live at my current spending level in the Bay Area for 3-ish years on $125k. In my small, Midwest hometown, I’m sure I could stretch that to 6-8 years. The disadvantage, of course, would be living in a podunk town in the middle of nowhere.
As another datapoint, my family of 4 has lived in the Bay Area for the last 4 years on an average budget of $62k. Rent is extremely expensive (60% of our total spend), but everything else can be had quite cheaply. It's true that we're more likely to spend the weekend camping in the Santa Cruz mountains than flying down to Disneyland, and prefer a charcoal barbecue at the park to dining in a restaurant downtown. Honestly though, that's how I'd spend my time even if the alternative were free. And we also take at least one international vacation each year -- even during COVID, we spent a month in the Mexican Riviera.
My salary could support a much looser budget, but we find our life very fulfilling as-is and don't see a compelling reason to spend more. Different way of seeing the world I guess.
Just a 2BR and food for 3 years = close to impossible on $125K gross.
But it is very much possible on $125K net.
NB: you're right, in the sense that if you're living off of savings it's net (and then some). But I can see why parent is... more than a little confused :)
In general, the more rural an area is, the lower the cost of living. Rural college towns are more likely to have an abundance of cheap apartments than the average rural area.
However, it's all highly relative. San Francisco and NYC are the two most expensive locations in the United States. By comparison, everywhere else is cheaper. Lots of major US metro areas are extremely affordable by comparison, and $120k could probably last a frugal person for 2 or 3 years near those locations especially if living with roommates... so you don't have to live in the middle of nowhere to be somewhere affordable. Compared to a lot of places outside the US, even the affordable parts of the US probably seem expensive, but my limited understanding is that most of Western Europe is relatively expensive... so probably not too different from the US in many places, but definitely outside my area of expertise.
The places with higher supply of housing or land and lower demand.
To be less snarky, about 80% of Americans live in urban or suburban areas. Those tend to be more expensive due to the higher demand. The other 20% live in rural or exurban areas where land is extremely cheap.
However, access to education and healthcare outside the urban/suburban regions can be very bad.
