At the risk of turning this thread into a bunch of stories about how we all came to be where we are, I'll share my story, as it parallels yours, at least to a point.

I started flying when I was 16. The Civil Air Patrol gave me a scholarship to get me through my first solo flight. After that, I took a job mopping hangar floors, scrubbing oily bellies, and pumping gas to fund my flight training. The place I worked had a couple super cubs, and the first thing I did after getting my Private cert was to get a tailwheel endorsement in those cubs (N57528 and N4101E, my first true loves in aviation.) There was a rich and vibrant homebuilt and aerobatics community at KCHD, and I dreamed of building a plane some day. When I graduated High School, I spent a semester at Embry-Riddle in Prescott, AZ. Unfortunately, tragedy in my family left me unable to afford Embry-Riddle, so I went back to Chandler, got my job at the airport back, and started school at Arizona State while working on my additional ratings. I earned my CFI and started working as an instructor while I finished my degree. I was so poor, but dang those were fun times. I graduated in May 2001, and in August 2001, at age 22, got hired with American Eagle. It turns out that August of 2001 was a really bad time to try to start an airline career...

So, I did some instructing again, but the industry was in pretty bad shape. I also had a brief glimpse into the life of an airline pilot, and decided that maybe it wasn't what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. So I went back to school, got a whole pile of degrees while working various jobs and internships, getting married and sprouting a couple kids. Then, I finally got my first "real" job here in Los Alamos, NM just about 5 years ago. During those 5 years, I helped get a flying club started up here, and finally, at age 39, find myself in a position where I can afford the expenditure of both time and money to build a Kitfox.

It was not something I rushed into. It took a whole lot of planning on how it would fit into my every aspect of my life. It has to fit in my garage, but also into my finances, and into my relationships with my wife and my kids.

I do think that in terms of timing, getting an airplane built before you have kids will make managing your time a little easier, and you'll have an brand new airplane to fly for most of your life. Getting and early start is great. If you're moving in with your girlfriend, it's serious enough that you should not be too flippant about how this affects her and your relationship with her. You should make sure that building an airplane is something she is fully on board with, and that she understands the time and money that you intend to spend on it.

Also, even though it sounds like you are eager, it also sounds like one year from now, many unknown variables in your life will become known. You'll know where you stand with your student loans, your house will be sold, and you'll actually have a workable space in which to build. You'll never get that hangar rent back, and your progress will likely be slow if you have a 30 minute drive each way to get to your project. On the one hand, if you wait until the "perfect" time to start, you'll be outside the fence looking and dreaming forever. On the other hand, one year, in the grand scheme, is a trivially short amount of time to spend tying up loose ends and planning for a large expenditure of time and money.

Just my $0.02, and I'm a long way off from being able to claim that I have any special knowledge about how to successfully complete a build.