I'm sorry for the situation you found yourself in, but that isn't remotely true. I've been working independently for a while, and I've sometimes discussed how much is worth putting somewhere safe in the current economic climate with friends in broadly similar positions. The idea that anyone wouldn't do that was universally regarded as crazy.
Of course there might be exceptions. If you're starting your first business and you're bootstrapping, you might choose to accept a much higher level of risk than most normal employees ever would in order to maximise your chance of eventual success. (I know reasonable people who would disagree with even this, but there is at least a decent argument in its favour.) If you have a dependent with a serious medical problem and you need the money to fund treatment, you do what you have to do.
But if you're working in IT, in a good period, and you really are living month-to-month without either building up an emergency fund or having a clear reason to be spending everything you've got on something that is more important to you, I'd recommend consulting a good financial advisor and working out a budget so you can live within your means and better protect yourself before the next down period in the industry.
Suppose you're working in software development in the UK, recently graduated and now with a little experience but still quite early in your career.
If you're outside London and living in a shared place, maybe your salary is £30k, and your monthly living costs for rent, bills, and essentials like food and travel are £1,500. Your net monthly income after taxes and student loan repayments is probably about £1,850.
So, you have a surplus of £350 per month. If you set that aside throughout your next year of employment, sticking it in an ISA (a tax-exempt savings account), then by the end of that year you have nearly three months of safety margin.
Suppose, ignoring inflation to make the maths easy, that your salary increases at about 10% that year, without any negotiation or changing jobs. Now your take-home pay is probably about £2,000 after deductions, giving you a £500 surplus each month. If you saved that away the following year, you'd have more than 6 months of safety margin set aside within 2 years of starting to save.
Of course these are just example figures, hopefully not unrealistic for someone early in a software development career in the UK today, and they ignore any one-off major expenses you might have like getting a car serviced and MOT'd once a year or taking a foreign holiday. But even if you do those things, you can surely still save something, and when it comes to having a bit in reserve in case your career hits a bump, anything is better than nothing.
Edit: After checking a few prices, it turns out that some costs of living have gone up much less than I expected since I was that young. :-) So actually £1,500 is probably a lot more than you really need to spend on essentials under the conditions I mentioned, even if you're living in a tech-focussed area, and saving a few months' worth of essentials expenses should be much quicker than I worked out above.
