Originally Posted by wrxpilot

Believe me, I know ALL too well that feeling of impatience! More than once I was tempted to just get a big loan and make it happen... But I'm glad I didn't. The main reason is the debt situation we already talked about, but the second (and possibly more important) reason was that I spent some time enjoying my training and time building.

You asked how I built that time up? I just flew when I could, and turned the occasional vacation into a time building experience. For example, one year my little brother and I wanted to fly down to FL to have Christmas with our aunt and uncle. So I rented a plane, and we flew from Denver to south FL and back. That was an AMAZING experience that we still talk about, and I learned so much (this was right after my instrument rating, so I was able to experience real world IFR flying to new airports).

That was by far the biggest trip I did, but I definitely flew a lot of "$100" hamburger flights with friends and family. It was really a lot of fun sharing my love of aviation with people in my life, and I've always felt so sorry for the quickie ATP style students that missed out on that stuff. That really is the fun part, and it's also invaluable for building that all important confidence and independent decision making you'll use for the rest of your career.

I should also add that I left engineering once I was a CFI. I didn't want to have a foot in each profession, it's just too difficult to do that and really not that necessary when you're young with little responsibility other than yourself.