Hi Kyriakos:
Completed my f.ATPL Oct 2009. Im still with my 250s since hour- building in Europe is ridiculously expensive. Whatever i saved last year was spent on renewals and this is what i ll probably do in a few months. Prior to my flight training i had already obtained my engineering degree so now im using it professionally until my dream job opportunity shows up.
So, like many others your "back up" plan is your main one.
How much money and how many years did you spend on your degree? I have a "self fulfilling back up plan" theory. Many people working years on their back up plan before preparing their pilot career have more debts, miss the hiring train, and at the end congratulates themselves to have a back up plan because they use it.
Sorry if it doesn't concern you, but many times I met young and older individuals victim of their "self-fulfilling back up plan".
A truck driver earns more than an engineer with a degree, so money is not the issue in the back up plan decision process.
Some "candidates" (wannabe) are kids wanting a social status (jet...), some others only want to be pilot.
It is extremely easy to become a pilot. A cheap basic CPL, no debts but at the opposite some savings (if you are a truck driver or something like that it's not an issue) and a vfr job in africa/canada/usa/PNG...... Any motivated person without debs can do it, and have the pilot blast of their life flying bush, which is the essence, the spirit of the pilot career and purpose, travelling and being a link between 2 points without road access, a kind of mission.
Funny enough, almost nobody choose this path that leads to pilot, but instead spend 10/15 years to go through back up plan, work, filing up candidate files for the big airlines, than eventually start with no savings as a F/O, F/O meaning nowaday being student pilot, meanwhile the bush pilot already changed career without debts and no regrets, or is captain on turboprop/turbofan.
It is harder and harder for the society, the older pilots, the companies to appreciate positively the modern pilot, the one who wants a social status and only that, the dreamer that would never fly in Nepal on challenging runway and airplanes, the spoiled kid who spend all the money he can find around him, from the bank to his GF's. This is the 2011 student pilot, this is what he became. As a result for many of them, instead of living a dream they became losers (sorry) unable to master their destiny, needing more money, waiting, dreaming their life until they retire and the movie ends.