Sounds like a lot of good suggestions here!
But, you
can do it all "wrong" (as in, not following the advice given here) and still get your license at a reasonable cost and within reasonable time. What I am saying is, if you can follow the advice, by all means do! If you can't, get the licence anyway; no point putting it off because you can't fly every day or whatever.
E.g., myself:
"Always shop around to find the best school available" - Only one school available in my area, so that went out the window.
"The most important thing is to find a good instructor and stick with him/her" - So far I have flown with 6 different instructors, and been assigned to another 2 who left for greener pastures before I even had time to fly with them...
"Budget for 55/60/75 hours" - I didn't budget at all.
"It's imperative to fly regularly, with several lessons per week and no long gaps between lessons" - I flew 3 hours in 2006, 9 hours in 2007 and 1 hour in the first three months of 2008, because my school was unable to recruit
any instructors.
Still look set to get the licence this summer, in 46 - 47 hours all in all. So remember, the advice you get might be the
best way of doing it, but it's not the
only way of doing it!