This "I spent 60K and if I'm lucky I'll break even when I'm 93" stuff makes no sense to me. You enjoyed it all, didn't you? Well, maybe not the FI course
But most of it. So if you hadn't learned to fly/teach helis, what would you have done during that time? Answer - flown anyway with nothing to show for it. Or got a boat, or played golf, or gone round the world, or done something else interesting and exciting which turned you on. And all those things would have cost. Or if you didn't, you'd have got as bored as most people do when they've no real aim or challenge in life.
So yes, it costs. But not quite as much as we all make out.