I can live off a bunch of years in Spain for that money.
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. ;-)
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 :)
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.
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.
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.
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.
HN has an anti-flamewar system which kicks in when there's too many comments too fast in one chain.
https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-27...
"Median household income was $68,703 in 2019, an increase of 6.8 percent from the 2018 median of $64,324 (Figure 1 and Table A-1)."
35K is closer to the poverty line in much of the USA for a family than the median income.
For a startup founder, or in fact any single person, median personal income is a more relevant number.
Dual income households are pretty common these days, so a median household income of $65K with a median income of $35K makes sense.
If you go to neighborhoods where the locals live or outside the city limits you'll see the price drop considerably. A friend is living one hour away from here and paying 600 EUR for a nice house that's four times the size of my apartment.
Presumably you go to large cities for the social interaction.
On the other hand, living in Spain and speaking fluent English can be almost like a superpower in some circumstances.
(And for the record, my native language is Spanish)
And although I wouldn't worry too much about language too much if your focus is primarily on work, Spanish is perhaps the easiest language to learn as an English speaker. You can achieve professional level fluency in 600 hours of study. Certainly with 80-100 hours of concentrated study and continued practice after that you can learn more than enough to get by in daily life.
Two big advantages with learning Spanish: 1) pronunciation is easy to learn and is the same for both written and spoken Spanish; 2) there are lots of cognates, so if your English vocabulary is good then you already know lots of Spanish words.
Spain is great, but for the purposes of picking a country for working remotely and having a longer runway, I would argue heavily for Mexico over Spain if you're picking a Spanish speaking country. The overall cost of living is low, internet access can be great depending on the area, you'll be on a similar timezone as the US, and services (cooking, laundry, babysitting, etc) are very inexpensive - leaving you with much more time to work (or to use your downtime more effectively than running errands/etc).
Both are pretty easy, though, and Spanish opens up a lot more of the world. But Italian is just so darn fun :)
Your impressions are correct. While some violence is greatly exagerated to paint a picture (For instance, Chicago, St Louis, Baltimore, Washington are more violent than São Paulo or Rio de Janeiro), it still is MUCH safer in Europe or Sillicon Valley/New York.
Barcelona is awesome and it's cheap (spent a total of $800 for the whole month on food, living, etc.). Highly recommend for someone on a budget who wants to hack away.
Spain is increasing taxes and they already were pretty hefty for Limited Liability companies.
Portugal is similar on paper but it's easier to start, and their tax agency is not nearly as punitive and arbitrary as the Spanish one.
And you'll have sun (in the south), contained prices and polite Portuguese, which tend to speak decent English, in case you need hiring.
Portuguese infrastructures and utilities are still far below Spain, specially roads and highways, but Portugal is slowly improving while Spain has been declining for a while and it's basically walking to a cliff.
Goin on a Travel to Spain is pretty easy too.
I'm Spanish, if anyone thought I was advertising my country.