Thought I'd add my own experience...
Finished school in 2006, got the second highest grades in the county. Offered Law in one of the best University's in Dublin. Delighted as many uncles and also my mother worked in varying parts of company/family law.
Took a year out to decide what I wanted to do, got a job in a bank for a year and decided sitting in an office just wasnt for me and randomly decided that I was becoming a pilot.
Asked my parents could they afford it and they said they would struggle but they would scrape it together (they are divorced too so I had to to have that tough conversation twice!)
Paid the €2000 deposit myself and from that years work I saved up €12,000 and basically paid for my living expenses for the 12 of the 18 months I was in flight school in a foreign country.
Passed all 14 ATPL exams at first attempt with an average of 97.7% and passed all practicals first time. The world had turned upside down a few months after I started flight school so my parents struggled and alot of nights I sat awake worried would they be able to do it but they did and I could never repay the faith they put in me and am so proud of them.
Then in 2009 I fell for the hoax of a A320 type rating with no job and paid over €20,000 to fly that big jet for an hour. (My lawyer uncle footed that bill and I will have to pay him back one day, he hated his hugely paying London City job and quit that same year).
Anyway cutting to the chase:
I was shocked I hadnt walked into a job which I'm fairly sure I could have done in any other career. It was a lesson I needed to learn, I had worked in bars as a kid so I got a job in a bar in Dublin and started saving. Then I got a job in a bigger bar, and now I work in the busiest one. I worked my ass off for a year, took three months off to go to the Caribbean and fly over there(which was my dream and the original reason why I chose to become a pilot). Came home and got my old job back luckily and started saving again.
Now I've been home 5 months and my savings have been good and I have put myself in a position where if I have to P2F it I have that choice, but so far I have said no to the ' great offers'.
My point is this: go get a job, or do what previous posters have said and get the military to pay for it (great idea in my opinion!) because its all about the benjamins in this business these days, but it can be done if you work hard.
I'm 23, have around 500 hours total time, an A320 rating and all the time in the world to pay back my parents for their help. I calculate that I've paid for approx 30% of my training out of my own pocket, now that might not seem like much but when you consider that 30% is almost €40,000 it seems like alot!
Best of luck and hope you find my experience helpful.