Hello! I am 28 years old and am looking for a career change. I have a wife and a 2 yr old son. I have started looking into a career as an airline pilot and am excited to see many pilot schools near me, (I live in Phoenix).
My only concern is how I could balance ATP while providing for my family. My wife loves being a stay-at-home mom and I don’t want to ask her to work while I go back to school.
I am confident that we will be able to balance the time I will need to commit to school with family life, but what I am very unsure about is how we will continue to meet living expenses. My income right now is very modest and we live off of very little, so I’m not concerned with standard of living, just meeting the most basic living obligation: food, housing, etc.
Is it possible to provide for my family while going to ATP? Have others done it before?
Not only have other people done it. I’m reasonably sure the majority of people do it (simply browse the Student Experience section for individual stories) and I myself did it as well with a mortgage, 3 kids and a dog. It’s a matter of budgeting and some sacrifice. People usually either tap into their savings or take out additional funds on their loan to cover their living expenses during training.
Long short it can most definitely be done and actually is happening daily. What I think is important is to view this not as an expense, but an investment in your future. Particularly a future career that is booming literally like never before and has the potential for tremendous and life changing returns.
Many people take out extra money as part of their loans to use as a monthly stipend to help cover their bills. Call the admissions department to ask about the specifics on this.
I’ve got a follow up question to Zachary’s original question. Relying on additional loan amounts during training seems like what I would need to do for my family’s circumstances. However, how do people tend to deal with flight building time? I’ve seen on other posts that CFI average annual income ranges from $25,000 to $30,000. To avoid being overly optimistic, assume my income is $25,000, that’s $2083 a month. Say I cap my rent at $1500 (which even that is tough in the area I am looking to train), I’m left with $583 a month. That’s obviously not enough to cover even the most frugal of expenses for a family of four. Are there flight school loan options that can be used to cover the gaps during CFI time?
You can of course apply for additional funds to cover to for a while but I do believe there’s a cap. Once instructing many people simply tighten their belts and tap into savings.
I suggest you contact Kirk in finance for your loan options.
I do not believe there are any loans that cover the financial gaps while one is a CFI. I would encourage you to really take a look at your budget and see where you can cut.
As a CFI, most people defer loan payments while you’re able, apply to cadet programs with tuition reimbursement and tighten budgets/tap in to savings for the remainder of life expenses.
If that’s not an option right now, maybe best to wait on training to save up the money needed to get by during that time.