Survive, yes. Thrive, no. The USA is an expensive place.
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.
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.