Pay-For-Training by Me
Actually, my parents gave me some money toward my Private. Everything up to multi I earned, saved for, and paid out-of-pocket from my day/night job. I received a little money from my grandmother's estate and that paid for my multi. Everything after that, including $3K of Citation type, I paid for myself. In later years, that included paying for my standardization at Mesa when it hired me to instruct.
My situation might be a little different than many people because I was working full time, established in my business and could put flight time on a pay-as-you-go basis. But because I worked odd shifts, my training was irregular, to say the least, and it took me more than six years to finish all my ratings. Moreover, I hadn't decided to pursue aviation full time at that point.
I did it but, clearly, a better way to go would have been to bite the bullet, take out a loan, quit my day job, find a school and devote my undivided attention toward finishing my ratings.