He is 25, and he plans to retire at 30, in 5 years he may save another couple thousands more. Let's put on the lower part of the "couple" spectrum and say he have 200.000, in 5 years he will have 400.000 USD. This money is enough to retire early with the 4% rule http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/05/29/how-much-do-i-need...

Maybe you are assuming that he want to live in the states, with the interest of this money he could live easily in Spain, Thailand, Argentina, etc...

When someone says "a couple thousand" you think of 200k as a lower bound?

The English colloquialisms "a couple" or "a few" are generally accepted to mean 1 < x < 5.

A couple and a couple of hundred are quite different though!

The original post suggests ~$2000, not ~200k

thailand maybe - spain seems like a stretch

It can be [1]. Instead of saving 10-15% of your income, suppose you cut your expenses drastically and started saving 80% of your income. The math works out that you will be financially independent within 5-7 years and no longer have a requirement to work for money.

[1] http://earlyretirementextreme.com

Note he said a couple thousand, not a couple hundred thousand.