Buy an arplane. This is what I did: bought a simple Cherokee for $22,000, got my ratings (Private, Instrument, Commercial, CFI, CFII), then went to work to Alaska, sold the Cherokee (for $21,000, airplanes do not depreciate that much), which paid for all my training, got a lot of hours, got an ATP, floatplane, and commercial helicopter.
On the other hand, I usually try to talk people out of becoming a professional pilot: one health hiccup and your medical certificate is in jeopardy.
Not really. At major airlines there are special programs that help with this (even with DUI's surprisingly) mainly because pilot unions make it part of the contract. For a corporate pilot, there is rarely any recourse. one other thing to remember is that the environment in the aircraft is not very friendly: very low humidity, constant changes in pressure (even if the plane is pressurized). Flying a lot of passengers also means you are exposed to a lot of germs. On top of it all, add constant lack of sleep, sedentary lifestyle, etc. You have to be very proactive to stay healthy.
The ‘legacy’ airlines like American, Delta, United , Alaska, Hawaiian etc provide quite good disability programs. Additionally, ALPA, the pilots’ union, offers a loss of medical insurance. Often times a loss of medical is not something that was also debilitating. There are plenty of other jobs for airline pilots to do in training departments and other areas in flight operation requiring the same knowledge base.
On the other hand, I usually try to talk people out of becoming a professional pilot: one health hiccup and your medical certificate is in jeopardy.