You are going to find a job in a year, or you could find a cheaper place to live in a year... Things just aren't as scary anymore once you have enough saved up.
If you live paycheck to paycheck it's going to be stressful no matter how big that paycheck is.
It doesn't, for me. I'm sitting at ~12mo with full expenses. I budget everything, so i do me full expenses, all the niceties, enterainment, etc. If i lost my job i could probably stretch it to ~24mo with the fat cut away.
Still, i worry. Keep in mind i do partially agree with you, paycheck to paycheck is a massive concern for people. It's why i obsessively envelope budget. But the concern i described in my prior post is a concern of skill, interview success, etc. Ie, feeling unsure in success of finding a job in my career path.
BUT All of an individual's interviews are a terrible sample from which to draw any inferences about the industry and your place in it. Successful interviews give a signal. Failed/Not-followed-up-on interviews give none at all. My point being, tuning and training yourself must be a separate endeavor from interviewing or you will always be in for a bad time.
If you have the wherewithal to put away a year of expenses, and the self-restraint to double that if you needed to, I'm pretty sure you could find some gainful employment during that time.
You could also probably stretch things a bit farther if you really had to by doing things you'd rather not do. Skipping rent or mortgage payments probably doesn't fit with your ethos, and will have negative consequences eventually, but it'll take time to go through eviction or foreclosure procedures, and that gives a bit more time to figure out something.
As a bonus though, my worry results in true appreciation for my current status. I feel undeserved, and compared to middle America i often struggle to imagine how they get by.
I make enough to budget nicely. I can start paying off my mortgage. I can start saving for retirement. Yea, it's far from perfect, but i truly feel like i "make enough" for a happy life. I have money to work towards my goals, be it retirement or whatever.
I can't imagine making half as much and still being expected to retire. To have safety. The state of the world confuses me. But i am grateful nonetheless.