One thing about training. If you don't test it, it will be less efficient. See HoYeah, the thing is, if you do some course somewhere and you pay a lot of money for it, you will just sail trough. You are a customer and they want to make you happy. If you take a sling load course as a PPL, nobody ever is going to believe you will ever use it. If you instead go through a training with the goal of achieving a new certification, you will study hard and work for it. The examiner gets his money if you pass or not. Passing an exam is very satisfying. Assuming we are about the same age, a few years ago I deep dove into physics, especially cosmology with the help of EdX. I have later worked my way through text books about general relativity to understand more of it, but nothing gave me more pleasure and satisfaction, when I passed all the tests in those first courses. Which are, as they claim, about the standard of an undergraduate course. The satisfaction to do something to an established standard is worth the effort. If you don't have to work hard for it it is not worth it. The same goes for the CPL and IFR, you have to work hard for it, it does make you a better pilot and no courses on the side will ever give you the same satisfaction. You claim you want to do something, you always dreamed of, but from the beginning you want the easy way. Accomplishing your dream will be so much more amazing, if you set the bar high.