Originally Posted by jared4271987

I recommend doing what I did. I started when I was 16 and still in high school and I'm 21 now, so we're close to being in the same boat. I always had a job that allowed me to get at least a 2 hour lesson a week with the occasional solo cross country to work on my commercial hours. I did all of my stuff under part 61 which allowed me the flexibility to take time off if I needed to. Each certificate did take me 9-12 months, but hey I'm 21 with an awesome job and my friends are still doing construction jobs and flipping burgers.

A lot of people will tell you to worry about getting your multi-engine time and tons of PIC and so on, but don't buy into it. While these times are eventually important of course, you should look into splitting time, buying block time in an A/C for a discount or even getting up in the backseat for another student's lesson if it's okay with the CFI/student. Just worry about getting that commercial ticket so you can start getting paid for your hours. Snag every opportunity you can to be in an airplane, even if you can't log the time. Experience is experience and it will all help your skills and knowledge.

If I could go back and do it all again the only thing I would change is the amount of studying I did, which was definitely not enough. I just had two students that started flying at the same time in late summer pass their PPL rides on the first try at about the same time. Each of them did very well but one student spent only $6,000 where the other one spent close to $10,000. The only difference was that the first student had always come to each lesson with far too many books, tons of questions and always wrote everything down. Basically I could tell this guy did his homework and I required less flights of him to get my signature. The second student didn't fly regularly and didn't do as much homework.

So long story short, when you study at home it's free. The more you study, the more you can show an instructor you have what it takes. He'll probably sign you off sooner and bam. Money saved.