Horizon,
I feel your pain! I'm 29, preparing for my IR checkride and have 200 hrs. My life consists of working in a Dilbert cube that I hate almost every day, a quick run after work, and studying. I make enough to pay for my student loans from college, help my brother out a little bit with school, and am paying as I go for everything in flight training. It's tough... I rent an apartment and don't splurge much. I've made a lot of sacrifices, such as selling my beloved motorcycle, not going out too much anymore, etc. But I've got things planned out such that I'll be going for my CFI in late spring, will have very little debt, and will throw off the shackles of office work he**. Hang in there man!
Side note...
I was at my FBO a couple of months ago when I observed a father picking up his 17 yr old son from flight lessons. The kid asked where they were going for lunch, and the dad said he had bought a rotisserie (sp?) chicken and some other stuff. This kid started whining like a little child how it wasn't fair that his father and brother got to go to Wendy's (or wherever). The dad was like "Now son, you get to do flying lessons, etc.". Junior was still bitching and moaning until the dad conceded and said he take him to Wendy's.
I was very close to slapping that spoiled little boy around. My parents paying for flying lessons when I was 17 (or any age) is incomprehensible - just wouldn't EVER happen (they couldn't afford to anyway).
On the other side of things, my last couple of flight instructors came from humble backgrounds, but got loans.
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