[UncleOxidant]

I'm not the OP, but I'm in a similar boat: my contract ends next month and I'm told they're not going to be able to get it renewed due to budget cuts. I'm also planning to take 4-6 months between gigs (possibly a lot longer depending on what the job market looks like then).

> How does one do this?

In my case my wife has a job that provides the health insurance (so your "dependent on another" is partly right). In addition, our mortgage will be paid off in January, so that'll make it easier to live on one (smaller) income. We'll still be running a bit of a deficit each month (between $200 and $300/mo) but we've got a good 12 to 18 months of living expenses saved up in our emergency fund (that would be 12 to 18 months of living expenses if we both were to lose our jobs). After that there's a Roth IRA we could draw upon. So not too worried at this point.