Join the club......it's true what they say, money makes the world go round!
As far as your first steps, you really should have a look throughout the wannabe forums as there is plenty of info already discussed. Not sure about the engineer route though....there's probably a forum for that somewhere on pprune.....?
A good site to keep up to date with recruitment in the aviation industry is:
www.ppjn.com
Hope this helps......
laparker79.