There are way too many other threads on here where people indicated total hours to solo and check ride. Read those and you'll get a better idea of the average and some of the crazy and weird cases.
Things that add significantly to training costs:
Your CFI leaves - you need a new CFI
Your CFI gets sick - you need a new CFI or wait
You fire your CFI - you need a new CFI
Limited aircraft - major mechanical issue / no plane
You don't fly enough (money, weather, work, family)
Generally you can control the following in order:
How much money you have saved up
How much you pay for the plane and instructor
Pick a flight school with several similar aircraft
Pick a timeframe with the best flying weather
Your family's commitment to your goal
Your work schedule conflicts
Pick a location with optimal flying conditions
When your CFI will leave for the airlines
That you and your CFI will jive
...if you look at the 1st list the mostly costly thing is a change of instructors. If you look at the second list the things you can control the least are jiving with your instructor and whether he/she will bail for the airlines. The next most costly thing is if your flight school has like only 1 plane and it goes down for an engine overhaul. You could be waiting for a couple of months and will have to backtrack just the same as switching CFI's!!! So hopefully you've selected a flight school that has several similar aircraft and your instructor is not close to leaving for the airline career.
If you are committed and want to get started right now, have enough to solo + 15hrs. I would budget 20hrs for solo so that is 35hrs of aircraft rental and probably 45hrs of CFI time. If you really want to have it all saved up in advance, plan for 75hrs of aircraft rental and 65hrs of CFI time (less CFI time due to solo flights and solo cross countries).
A typical flight lesson might go like this:
Schedule a 2hr block several days in advance
You show up and spend 15min doing ground work with CFI
Go fly for maybe 1.1hrs
Follow up ground work for another 20min
Total bill: 1.1hrs (aircraft) + 1.6hrs (CFI)
One of the items mentioned above is weather. You can't make the clouds go away or turn winter into summer. But you can pick the best months and the best times of day to fly. So here is where you start learning weather early!!!
You will want to schedule your flights far enough in advance to
get the times you want. This can mean a need to schedule 5+ days early or someone else gets it. Early in your training, really windy days and low overcast (IFR) days will not help you out any. So pick days and times with higher ceilings and lesser crosswinds. As an example, I use Windy about 5 days out and look at the winds, gusts, cloud bases and precip types. If a day looks good at a time that works then schedule it. Then see what happens. Once you get within 2 days the predictions are more accurate and you can use it to cancel a lesson. Having good wx will help you towards soloing sooner. You will also need to learn crosswinds but high crosswinds can complicate flights teaching you to land. In general, flight blocks about 2hrs prior to sunset will have less winds to deal with and little or no thermals. A nice way to round it out is to then purposely pick a lesson on a Saturday or Sunday at noon. You'll get the winds and thermals
I would recommend 3 lessons a week, 2 during weeknights and one on the weekend. When it comes to the workup to soloing if you can do 3 or 4 flights in a row (one each evening) I think you will get it done the quickest/cheapest. So during that part of the training plan for a "burst" of lessons.
Good luck!!!
