First time posting in this side of the forum, I wanted to say was that there are ways of doing these things that can save vast amounts of money. It depends on the school you go to, and how it is run.
If you are able to find yourself an instructor who is willing to teach you on someones aircraft (who is willing to let you), the savings will be massive. They're not hard to get hold of. Just don't be traditional and go to a school who are charging you a fortune at every opportunity.
58 hours @ £155 per hour (Cessna 152) = £8990
58 hours fuel surcharge @ £6 per hour average = £348
Equipment & Books (not including headset) = £297
Skills Test (including 2 .5 hours rental, examiner & CAA fee) = £483
Medical £170
Club membership fee = £115
Headset £915 (Bose A20)
What about 45 hours @ £120 instead?
A fuel surcharge? I didn't pay one of those.
Equipment and books £0 (share with a fellow human?)
Skills test - fair enough.
Medical - pretty sure I paid about £55 for my class 2?
Club membership is usually included in the cost of the hire for the day, or it certainly was where I learnt?
Headset you don't absolutely have to buy, but I got a lovely David Clarke for a couple of hundred. Certainly don't need Bose written on anything you own apart from maybe a Range Rover sound system.
Let's say it takes 60 hours at £175
Where are you paying that? I got a quote for tailwheel training on a Chipmunk at Duxford for that price?
So...there are big differences and its really dependant on where you go. It's easy for me to say, I basically had my PPL paid for by the idiots at the MOD, but don't just accept that you are going to spend enough for a small house deposit.
As I say, find yourself an aircraft and an instructor and you're laughing. If you can find someone letting you fly an aircraft at a sensible rate once qualified then that's even better.
p.s. If you're in the London area and you want to fly, you could fly with RS for £80 an hour + instruction in a very smart PA38? If you're paying over £130 an hour for flying anything up to PA28 size, you're just wasting money. There are ways around it.