New view on life after near-death experience

Straits Times: Sun, Jan 22

A near-death health scare in 2009 changed Ms Peh Li Lin's perspective on life and her mindset towards money. The 39-year-old, who runs three childcare centres, and is also a financial adviser at Tokio Marine Life Insurance and at her own business insurance consultancy, Millea Insure-Centric, went back to work less than a month after giving birth to her fourth child in 2009. As she said: 'There were tonnes of work to do.' The activity caused some fairly heavy bleeding and she was hospitalised for a week in the third week. Thinking it was a minor problem, she went back to work after that. But she then collapsed due to a womb haemorrhage and had to spend a week in intensive care. 'It almost ended my life... I felt so hopeless,' she says. 'Now when I look at work, it's less for the money and more for personal satisfaction. The income is a bonus. In life, it is not just about being academically smart. It is also about the time you can spend with your children. 'I tell myself that I won't wait till tomorrow to do whatever I can do today. I want to help as many people as possible in meeting their personal insurance needs. I also want to help more children achieve holistic development in their early years.' In 2008, Ms Peh and her husband invested about $400,000 of their savings and took a $100,000 loan to buy over two childcare centres. They have just partnered with others to add a third centre to their business. She was a flight stewardess from the age of 18 to 28. Her childcare centres under the Zee Group take in a number of children with learning difficulties, and have a team of specialists to help these children with their different learning styles. She is married to Mr Lawrence Goh, 43, a director of Zee Group and Millea Insure-Centric. They have four children - Annabelle, 11, Bon Shaw, eight, Anais, five and Amelin, two. Q: Are you a spender or saver? I was a saver, saving up to 90 per cent of my income when I was single. When I had my children, I was happy to spend on them and I have become more of a spender since 2009. I save 20 per cent and spend about 30 per cent of my income on servicing mortgages, insurance plans, my children's education and my personal expenditure. We pay about $80,000 a year in premiums, mostly in endowment plans. I see it as forced savings. I set aside 50 per cent of my income for my businesses' operation expenses and future expansion. After my health scare, I don't think so much about spending money and am happy to spend more on longer overseas trips. Now, I even take my extended family along and that is the quality time that money cannot buy. I just came back from a holiday in Italy with my two older kids and I spent 20 euros (S$33) on a cup of ice cream for them. My sister said to me recently: 'When you were a stewardess, you holed up in the hotel room to save money instead of seeing the world, but now you can pay 20 euros for ice cream.' Q: How much do you charge to your credit cards every month? I charge an average of $3,000 to $4,000 a month. It's for my personal expenses, including entertaining clients and buying vitamins and health products. Q: What financial planning have you done for yourself? I invest in properties, shares and insurance. My husband and I are insured for more than $500,000 each. We have life insurance, endowment and personal accident plans. My children are also well covered. I also bought endowment plans for their education needs, for which I need to set aside $5,000 per annum per child. I still have about $200,000 invested in shares, including some blue chips. I suffered a lot of paper losses in 2008 and now, I do not touch my portfolio as I don't have time to monitor the stock market. Q: Moneywise, what were your growing-up years like? My family consists of my parents, an elder brother, an elder sister and a younger brother. My mum is a housewife and my father, who is in his 70s, still runs his home appliances business in a shop unit that he owns in Jalan Besar. As kids, we would hang out at my father's shop and that was how I became interested in business. I wanted to follow in my father's footsteps to be an entrepreneur. My father is a hard-working and thrifty person, but is willing to spend on the children. This has rubbed off on me and I always put my family first. Q: How did you get interested in investing? I bought my first insurance plan when I turned 18. I was working as a stewardess then and I knew how important it was to have insurance to cover accidents and to save for the future. Q: What property do you own? I am a co-owner of a five-bedroom terrace house in Pasir Ris, which my parents live in. My husband and I own a 1,200 sq ft condo near Bedok Reservoir that cost about $700,000 and is being tenanted out. Both are fully paid up. I also own a 1,300 sq ft condo in Tanjong Katong worth $1.3 million, but it's not fully paid up yet. My father has always encouraged me to buy property as they offer good returns over the long term. Q: What's the most extravagant thing you have bought? A Chopard diamond-studded dress watch, which cost $15,000. Q: What's your retirement plan? I hope to retire when my children can take over my businesses, that is if they want to. I hope my business will reach a net worth of $10 million in five to eight years. Q: Home is now... The three-bedroom condo in Tanjong Katong. Q: I drive... A blue Honda Civic Hybrid and a grey Toyota Estima. [e-mail] Q: What is your worst investment to date? I invested in Transview shares in 2007. I put in $50,000 in several phases and lost $30,000, but am still holding on to the shares. I bought more shares when the price started to fall, hoping it will average out when the price bounced back but it never did. Q: And your best? I invested close to $500,000 in two childcare centres in 2008. They now have a combined annual turnover of more than $1.5 million. And the market price of the two businesses is now at least $1.6 million. Source: The Straits Times