As someone not currently collecting a long-term salary from any employer, I resonate with Ben Stein's words in Everybody's Business - Deep in Debt, and Now Deep in Worry - NYTimes.com:

MY work as a freelance writer in Hollywood some time ago prepared me for extreme uncertainty. This is the most insecure existence imaginable. It mandates saving, ingenuity and nonstop work and creativity. Freelancers never have a day off. Never. They know that they can go months without a check. They absolutely have to save. They have to have five different levels of fall-back plans and financial escape hatches.