Your expenses should adjust to and/or just not exceed your income. Getting in (theoretical) debt first to then find a job to be able to cover your lifestyle is unresponsible imo
To get an average about how much money you need, just look up cost of living in your country/area
https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/ you can use that for this
Defining financial independence as being able to pay for your living with your job is contradictory as you are dependent on the job.
Instead, in my opinion and some others, financial independence is having the choice to work or not because you have a financial structure in place (savings, retirement funds, investments, businesses etc) that will cover your expenses regardless if you do or do not work
And that financial independence is something you can measure by answering: "If I quit work now, when do I need to start working to be able to keep paying my bills"
If you have just saved up to pay for 1 year, then you're effectively financially independent for 1 year.