How much do you PAY?

I think I got my private for around $3500. I did my ground schooling through college, so that made a nice dent in cost savings vs. paying the instructor by the hour. I'm saving up to get the IR soon, just not sure when or where. I think I'll save up some vacation days and try to get it done all in one shot.
 
Private: A bit over $3K ($3200 maybe?) in 2003. C172, took me a bit under 3 months and took the ride at 42.6 hours.
Instrument: C172/Arrow/Archer and some others. Probably took $10K with some starts and stops, terrible work schedule, a bit under 90 hours of hood time and thus more like 100 hours of airplane/CFII time. (!) Took the ride at ~275 hours in April '06.
Commercial ASEL: Not even sure. Flew a few Arrows - First one got sold, second one was a hunk o' junk, third one was nice but not at my home field (1hr away), so training was only sporadic until I finished up in a weekend with Tony in the 182RG at KAMW. Well worth the 4-hour drive. Checkride at 600 hours and change in October '08.
Commercial AMEL: $1700 all in for the rating, though I'd gotten some dual in other planes before that more for travel purposes than for training. 150hp/side Apache burning auto gas, doesn't get much cheaper. Checkride a month after the Comm-ASEL.

Now I'm approaching 1000 hours TT... I've been paid for about 10, I've gotten maybe 50 for free, and paid for all the rest. Woulda made a down payment on a really nice house, if I wanted a boring life...
 
I will most likely upset a few people with this statement, but. If you have been a dedicated student and flown 3-4 times a week, and are at 100 hours + and still not signed off for the check ride, something is wrong. Either your instructor is milking you, he is afraid to sign a student off, or you just don't have the right stuff. At this point in time you need to be figuring out which one it is!
 
My club voted last night to up the hourly rate to $106/wet for the two 172N ($16/hr raise). The club needs it to break even on costs. This will add an additional $500-$700 to my final training bill.
 
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