Can't really give you advice on whether you should pause till funds allow or continue a limited training schedule, however when i was getting my private back in the early 90's in the US I had the same problem with funds. One of the things i did was to become what they called a "hanger rat" which basically involved hanging round the airfield every weekend and getting to know the aircraft owners and licensed pilots who rented and making them aware that i was available to go right seat for flights and to act as a second pair of eyes. I also asked the aircraft owners and the flight school to let me know if there was any "maintenance flights" where aircraft were being re-positioned to other fields for repairs and I would end up splitting the cab fare back with the pilot/CFI. Browsing through my logbook these flights accounted for some of the best flying experiences I've had. They included going both right and left seat with a CFI delivering a Warrior to a new owner from Los Angeles to New York over 3 days, taking a C210 from San Diego to Oklahoma for a new paint job, and an Beach Barron (left seat!!) to Arizona for a avionics upgrade. In addition to these flights I probably got about 80 hours of local re-positioning flights. A lot of the aircraft brokers would hire CFI's from flight schools to do the deliveries and the CFI's were only to happy to have someone else there for company, share a lunch stop, or a beer on a delivery that required an overnight in some god forsaken place. Obviously some of it could not be logged, but a lot of it could and it was a very educational experience. I was always amazed at how many, dare i say, mature and perhaps rusty pilots/owners wanted to take their aircraft (that were not your usual flight school types, but 182, Cherokee 6 complex types etc) for a flight but felt more comfortable with another "aviator" (and not there wife) in the right seat. Off course this is in no way a substitute for a proper PPL training program but it keeps your hand in the game when paying full freight for rental + lessons is not an option.
Oh and i would add one more thing. Another benefit of this was you really got to know about different aircraft makes,model and equipment etc, as a large percentage of CFI's are right lazy bastards and on those cold morning starts they would stay in the pilot lounge "checking the weather" while I was sent to do the preflight etc.
Last edited by piperboy84; 14th Mar 2012 at 13:27.