I don't regard flying an ILS as some kind of great objective, although I can do it OK.
For me, flying has always been about (a) being "up there" and (b) seeing Europe from the air and going to nice places.
Banging circuits was never my idea of fun and actually I don't think it is a good use of time or money in training because the workload is high and not representative of most real situations.
Yes, the OP could have worked out the cost up front as all those costs are openly known, but one could say that about all of the people who give up flying because they cannot afford to do it.
I just think he ought to expand his horizons a bit and not burn money on circuits. A US-trained PPL can certainly fly but they tend to get baffled by European ground procedures, and the IFR ones are universally baffled by the IFPS "Jeppesen business protection" system
