Ive heard arguments that part 61 CAN be cheaper than 141. How is that so if its 250 hours for the commercial instead of 190. With part 61, are you allowed to start training for CFI and CFII to build up to those hours and then as soon as you have 250, take all of your check rides back to back or do you have to build time solo until you get 250 hours before you can start CFI training.

Answer to your CFI and CFI-I is "Yes!"

Basically build up your times, get the PPL, instrument add-on. Then you can get instruction towards the CFI and -I while building your other times. Although it'd require 2 multi-rides, you could get your PPL-MEL/Instr while building those hours also, it all goes towards the total time, but you'll have to add-on the commercial multi at a later time.

In my experiance part 61 IS cheaper than 141

Dont know what shiny magazine ads you get your info from, but i recommend moving to a rural flight school with cheap rates for a few months and becoming best friends with the instructor(s).

(sometimes at these places you'll get to take lessons from the examiner too... makes the checkrides much less stressful knowing the guy ahead of time)

I specifically looked for a flight school that didnt have ads in AOPA flight training, or a fancy website. (which they dont have to pay for by jacking their rates, and you can rent a plane for $65/hr)

Very, very few pilots complete all their certificates in or close to the minimums prescribe in a part 141 training program. Almost all fall out of 141 and back into part 61 at some point in the training (usually during the instrument rating). A 141 program is very structured and does not take into account that different people learn in different ways and have different training obstacles. For a period of two years I hired over 200 CFI's. I saw only three or four during that time that had less than 250 hours with all their certificates complete through CFI. I would guess the average time as around 290 total flight hours.