Great post Skywave. Interestingly enough I am about to start with PAT in the next few months and we seem to have taken reasonably similar paths so far with things like the IMC rating etc.
Fortunately I am debt free which I guess is why I have been pretty poor at keeping track of the expenses along the way. What struck me was just how much cash I would have spent when it is all done. Like you say this will exclude living expenses, cost of flying kit (must be thousands in itself) and most importantly loss of income whilst I have been studying.