Thermo man, if money is tight then do as little groundschool as possible. This means 1 course instead of 2 or 3 . The answer (as always) is do all the ATPL exams as soon as you are sure you will complete the flying before they run out.
There are several threads on here about where to do distance learning but the received wisdom largely seems to be that Bristol ground school or Oxford are pretty good. The cost is around £2000 for the course plus exams and as you can do the course in 2 bits the expenditure is about £1000 a go plus exams.
Anyway hope this helps, there's lots of good info on the respective website and some practice stuff on the Bristol one.
Regards
N/S
