Some of the poster son here make the ground school sound daunting, its not.
The complete course will take you some time but it is doable at weekends and does not require weeks of full time study.
I know of a good few people who signed up in Jan and took exams in April and June (the exams are on a Monday and Tuesday and only take place every two months). The revision for most was minimal and mostly involved the cardinal sin of learning the question bank.
The flying trianing can be done at weekends, althouh this will drag it out a bit and for an SEP you only require 50 hours (not the 55 quoted above) or which 20 can be in an FNPTI and (I think) 25 in an FNPTII, athough imo after about 15-20 hours you will get limited benefit from a sim..