Comment by inoffensivename

I bought my own airplane to do a lot of my ratings, then sold it for a decent profit, I think it was pretty much a wash. I also flew my wife and kids all around the country and had a wonderful time.

I offset the costs by doing flight instruction, which is a very common route. To get to the flight instructor stage by renting airplanes is probably in the order of a $50k investment, with a significant variance depending on the cost of living.

As a caveat to this, all my experience is in the US.