I went modular as well. Worked through most of the training. This allowed me obviously to have cash coming in the door to fund the bits and pieces as I went along. Incidentally you will be surprised how much the "extras" add up to during your training. Things like accommodation for brush ups and down at Gatwick in a B&B, food money whilst away, petrol, bits of kit, charts, textbooks, protractors etc.
I took 2-3 week breaks from work to head off to the US to do hour building. Did that a few times to get my hours up. Then I quit the contract I was working to go fulltime at the ME, CPL and IR. That lot took me about 4-5 months with quite a few weeks lost due to the old weather in blighty.
If you follow something similar to what I did then hopefully you might only need to get finance for the ME/CPL/IR near the end of your training and thus reduce your interest costs.