Consider buying a flight sim, they are much improved from even a couple of years ago, will allow you to practice anytime and save a bunch of money on wrecked models when trying to learn new maneuvers.

It's not exactly like flying a real model, but pretty close and they are fun.

Another great idea if you ask me, is a foamy! If you pick up something like Eflite's little Yak-54, it fly's a lot more like a regular model than a foamy and I use mine out back in my alfalfa field all the time...