In my area (SouthWestern Ontario)
A Cessna 172 with instructor will cost around $165/hr (canadian funds).
Not terribly cheap.
Ground school is around $550cnd
I did get a lucky break in my training however.
The local flying club had a fantastic idea, they had a Raffle for a PPL!
They sold around 1000 tickets at $40 each, and the grand prize was basically a limited scholarship to get your PPL.
The prize was limited to $7135 (which would not cover the full cost of getting your PPL unless you somehow did it all with the bare minimum hrs). But at the time I was in 2nd year college, pretty much broke, and all I could afford was one $40 ticket.... almost did not buy it either.
There were also some stringent regulations attached to the prize. For instance, if you quit your training for any reason, you forefit the remainder of the prize, if you start causing problems, being beligerant, etc you get kicked out of the club and forefit the prize (it was all quite reasonable however, and the rules were there to protect the club, its members and the prize winner). You are also responsible for your own funding if you go over the prize max of $7135.
If you already had your PPL or higher license, you could put the prize $$ towards new ratings, fuel for your plane if you had one etc.
I will remember the prize draw for the rest of my life, the grand prize was drawn last, and when I heard my name and address called out I was in shock. My hands were literally shaking as I moved to the front to show them my ticket. The draw was done at a bar that one of the members owned, I had free drinks all night
At the time I knew little about the flying club, its members, all I knew is that I've wanted to fly ever since I was a little kid, lying down on some grass watching military student pilots practicing maneouvers in some sort of prop trainers (I had no idea which models the trainers were). But it was all fascinating and exciting to watch.
The club, instructors, its members all turned out to be fantastic people, I was instantly drawn in to the aviation world
Now I was given a shot at it, and I took it.
I combined my college schedule and flight training, and I got my PPL in 53hrs (5 months). I have no special talent for flying, I soloed at 13hrs, county solo at around 22 hrs... I had a lot of ups and downs, there were good times and there were bad times..... but in the end it was worth it
The PPL cost me around $1500 after the extra hrs and taxes kicked in (the prize was calculated for a Canadian min hrs of 47 total).
I also gaveup motorcycling so that I can focus myself on flying. I did lots of research into which headset would work well for me (LightSpeed Aviation has some fantastic deals on their older model ANR headsets), I got myself a Garmin 295 GPS (really cheap on eBay, the gps also works great in my car) and a hand-held radio for ATIS and "Just In Case" backup for the aircraft.
I must say I am glad to no end that the flying club had this raffle.
From the club's point, the raffle is also a great idea for them.
They grossed around $40,000 in ticket sales, the PPL main prize was limited to $7135, which at cost to them was probably around $4000, the other prizes were also of little cost to them (other prizes were some local scenic flights, free groundschool etc).
I also know that from the raffle the club was able to get a new engine for one of their Tomahawk's and overhaul another C172.
At any rate, I hope that other clubs follow with similar ideas and give some guy/gal a lucky shot at their dreams
Have a good one guys