I'm not going to say go to the mom and pop, but definately look at your different FBO's that are available. Try to find someone that has a set 141 schedule which will allow you to train with slightly lower mins.

PPL - 35 hrs vs 40 hrs in part 61
Inst. - 35 hrs vs. 40 hrs in part 61
Commercial - 190 hrs vs. 250 hrs part 61.

The thing you have to remember is that those are simply minimum times and it takes a special and dedicated person to get things done in that short of a time period. particularlly the private, the instrument is definately do-able, and the commercial is also, as long as you stick to your guns. There's also a rule that states you have to have atleast 120 hrs devoted purely to your commercial flight training, which would make sense given that 190 - the 70 hrs for pvt/inst would equal 120 hrs of commercial.

As far as how much things cost, national average for a private pilots license is still around 70 hrs of flight time. But we'll call it 50 becuase you'll be the "motivated" and "intelligent" student who can "fly".

instrument should be doable in 40 hrs, most are ready for a checkride w/ 30 hrs of hood time, and the last few are done to meet requirements, so we'll say it happens in 40.

then another 120 hrs for your commercial, maneuvers typically will take you the better part of 40 hrs to master, along w/ being fully comfortable in the complex airplane (normally only takes about 10 hrs). You also have 50 hrs of X-Country flying that must be done, so that works out to 90 hrs total and you'll have an additional 30 hrs to get even more profecient at doing maneuvers.

If you're doing this part 141 for the lower mins, you'll be forced to do the majority of the flying w/ an instructor (minus that last 30 hrs you'll need...so, you're looking at 160 hrs of dual) average price of a skyhawk is about $110/hr instructor costs are probably about $30/hr which would work out to $140/hr for 160 hrs or...$22,400.

You'll still have a minimum of 30 hrs that "can" be solo (it may or may not be) so that would be at $110/hr or $3,300

which would be a total of $25,700...to be safe, i'd round it up another $5000 to an even $30,000 which, if you're dedicated and lucky, key on the LUCKY it could happen for that price.

When that's finished, you'll need to get your CFI (certified flight instructor) which will take more ground time than flight time, a little bit of flying is done to get your comfortable in the other seat. But the vast majority is learning how to teach maneuvers, you'll be amazed at how well you'll have to know something in order to actually teach, CFI will cost around $1000-$2000.

I started instructing in Jan. of 06 and acquired about 300 hrs of flight time in 8 months. Not terrible, but not outstanding either. For each hour of flight there was probably an hour or more of ground. However, i didn't get rich instructing. The reason, most companies (in my case a university) that will guarentee you students every semester (and lots of students for that matter) won't pay that much. so whlie instruction costs $30/hr, the actual CFI will see between $8.50/hr - $17.50 hr depending on experience.

Best of luck w/ your choices, and hope this helps you with your decesions.