I posted this in another thread....
CFIing is great (I learned more about airmanship in the first 100 hours instructing than I have flying 1000 hours doing anything else). But it isnt the only thing. Be creative. As a plain vanilla private pilot, you can have someone else pay much of your expenses and sometimes even earn some money flying (just make sure you read your regs carefully).
Low time pilots can make money and build time by:
Sightseeing *
Aerial photography *
Hot-shot delivery *
Fish spotting *
Be a safety pilot *
Babysit an owner who doesn't like to fly alone *
Lifting skydivers
Pipeline patrol
Banner towing
Traffic watch
The list goes on.
*all things I have done for money
It took me 11 months to go from a 300 hour, dripping wet, CFII to a 1500 hour wonder who could barely get an interview let alone a regional job. So, to try to be more attractive to potential employers, I rented a twin and got my ATP (the only non-joyride flight time I have paid for since my CFII checkride). It took me six more months and 400 more hours to get my first 135 job. It was a real pain and tonnes of work, but someone else paid me the whole time I was building flight time. When I took that 135 job, I had zero dollars to my name, but I also had NO DEBT.
My guess is if all pilots had to take a route similar to mine, there would be far fewer pilots.
I drove to every airport within about two hours and talked to every person who would listen to me: at FBOs and every other business, the girls behind the desk, the manager, the mechanics, owners, and transients. I passed out resumes as fast as I could print them. And when I had been to all those airports, I started over.
Eventually I got a CFI job. Then everytime I hit some TT milestone (500, 700, 1000, etc) I would beat the bushes again. It s%cked, but that is what it took.
The real question is How Bad Do You Want It?