Go to the airport and look for signs to the FBO, instructing outfits, and the local flying stuff store. Check them ALL out for info on who offers instruction, rates, and reputations. If there is a school they will probably have the best advertisements and probably best success rates, but they often charge a bit more to cover admin overhead and to ensure quality instruction (better planes and steady work for the instructors). On your salary though, you may want to find the cheapest (often young) instructor and the cheapest piece of junk cessna 150 to get your first 20 or so hours. Once you can handle a 150 then you can start flying something a bit nicer as you approach your checkride. I flew a C-150 for about 25 of my first 50 hours, most of the rest in a 152, and about 8 hours in a 172 preparing for both my checkride and the USAF T-41 flight screening program. I think I flew my checkride in a 152 but it might have been in a 172, can't remember.
Do NOT be seduced into paying a lot more for a nicer aircraft initially though. You want something easy to fly and reasonably well maintained, not necessarily well equipped though. A radio, transponder, VOR receiver, artificial horizon, turn/slip indicator, and gyro compass are all you need to start developing SOLID habit patterns that will work with any aircraft. Depending on where you start flying, you may even be able to skip luxuries like the transponder, VOR receiver, and gyro compass, however I think that using those instruments ought to start early on to ensure you are comfortable with using them later on. But you certainly don't need anything more than basic analog "steam driven" gauges initially. Learn to fly first then worry about the fine details.
The 150 I learned on, Cessna 3486V out of Montgomery Field (MYF), could barely taxi out of its own way on the ground and the gyro compass drifted about 10 degrees a minute. But I sure learned good habits pushing that thing around the sky and flying that plane instead of the nicer 152s and 172s probably saved me $800 and let me finish training sooner. Plus scheduling the cheapo planes is sometimes easier since licened pilots often want creature comforts like a heater and doors that close all the way and a realistic service ceiling greater than 7,000'.
You may need to join a flying club in order to get covered by their insurance. This totally depends on who owns the plane you are flying and who the instructor works for. A school will wrap up your insurance fees with the hourly rate, while a freelance instructor will just rent from a local club and you will usually have to work out an insurance arrangement with the owner(s) if you ever want to solo. I personally joined a flying club that had the 150, 2 152s, and 3 172s. It cost me about $40/month but it got me keys to the hangar, the lockbox with the aircraft keys, access to the club fuel account (small discount on gas), and I could schedule any plane I got checked out to fly by a club-approved instructor. Of course, when I got my license I dropped my membership because I worked out a deal with uncle sam to pay ME instead of the other way around, but I'd probably try to find the same set of owners if I ever live in that area again because their arrangement was inexpensive and casual but they were pretty good with maintenance so the planes flew just fine.
BTW club insurance usually covers only damage to the plane and liability for the owners. You will have to get your own insurance if you want liability coverage for yourself. As a kid I didn't get any liability coverage because I didn't have anything that could be taken from me if I got sued and I figured the chances of me doing much damage and actually surviving it was fairly small. Now though, I have a lot to lose so I'd probably get a mil or two of liability coverage even if the club offered insurance as part of the membership arrangement. AOPA has more info on that.
Oh yea... You may want to join AOPA. They have a nice magazine and have lots of resources for pilots of all experience levels including students. I think they might even have a student-specific magazine but it's been years since I was a member so I'm not positive about that. The headset reviews in the AOPA magazine alone justified the membership cost my first year since they saved me from wasting about $300 on a headset/intercom "good deal".
