Anyone earn their private pilot certificate while running OTR?

I wasn't talking about you. The term Bozo applied to anybody who'd be dumb enough to dispute what @lester was saying. It wasn't pointed at you.
But, if the shoe fits go ahead and wear it...

 

If you drive for UPS or FedEx after so many years of safe driving and a good on time record they promote you to pilot to fly their planes.
So I’ve been told.

 

I took 3 years to earn my Private license. I later worked for American Flyers in Fl. AF is the nation's 2nd largest flight school. My recommendation is save your money until you can take a vacation long enough to fly every day. Or, save your money until you have regular & frequent time off in one place. Every time you fly at a different airport or school you will go through an evaluation ride & review of your training. That is money & time largely wasted. Imagine trying to become a champion dart thrower but you could only throw darts every several weeks for 1-2 hours at a time.

Assuming you can learn all of the book knowledge from online or from reading you still have the problem of not practicing the manual skill very often. That infrequent practice won't prevent you from learning the skill but it will cause you to take longer and spend more money. Simulators let you see and understand the tasks for Private but the Private license isn't well suited for skill practice on simulators. The Instrument Rating is supremely suited for simulator practice.

If you do this anyway pick a Part 141 school. They are more expensive but very well organized and track your tasks & skills much more carefully than a Part 91 school/instructor.

 

It is amazing but the cost of a new PC would be better spent on flying a real plane, IMO. I nearly taught myself instrument flying with old clunky hardly realistic PC sims. Private license is all about feeling what the aircraft is doing and seeing it doing it from the left seat.

 

I looked 2 years ago. C-172 & Piper Arrow were costing $150 per hour.

A private license will cost $8-10k in most cases. NOBODY earns their license in the FAA minimum amount of training time of 40 hours total time. 50-60 hours is more common. The best thing you can do to save money are
1 do all of your ground school/book learning on your own
2 fly every day until you are finished.

 

Good post. Going after the license in one shot is the way to go. You stay current and your skills don't erode.
Trying to keep the same CFI is important too. He'll know where your strong and weak points are and be able to tailor the instruction accordingly. Flying with a different instructor each time will slow down your initial progress.
Later, when you're going for more advanced ratings you might benefit by flying with different instructors.