TTA Cherokee Driver wrote:

Since this is a philosophical discussion, assume if I buy on my own I
will have to buy a VFR airplane to get a decent one that's affordable.
If I buy a VFR airplane that would rule out getting an instrument rating
because I'm obviously not going to rent airplanes for over 40 hours of
IFR training if I just bought one.

Consider this. Perhaps you can buy a VFR aircraft with pretty old avionics at an even
more affordable price than you're considering now. For actual IFR flight, you will
need avionics that can handle the places you want to go. In many cases, that's a
single NAV/COM with glide slope receiver and perhaps a marker beacon receiver. If
that's your situation, you can have an IFR aircraft by investing a few thousand more
after you buy the plane.

I would go shopping for the plane and add the minimal avionics needed to do most of
the work on the rating. Buy avionics (maybe used) with an eye to what you will use
after you get the rating. If what you buy won't handle all of the approaches required
for the test, rent another aircraft for the few hours needed to train for that.

For example, I bought a Cessna 150 back in 1989. I replaced the radio with a new
Mk-12D/GS and added a Terra MBR to the panel. That would've gotten me into the series
of airports I needed to make a flight from Central Jersey (47N) to Knoxville, TN
(TYS) and return. It also let me use TTN as my alternate on this end. I never
completed training, and I would've had to rent a plane with an ADF for part of the
work, but it wasn't a bad little IFR trainer.

George Patterson
If you want to know God's opinion of money, just look at the people
he gives it to.