By Lorna Tan, Senior Correspondent

Prior to switching to the life insurance industry, Ms Cynthia Toh was an auditor who spent many hours scrutinising the financial health of firms.

It sounds ironic, but back then, her personal financial health was not in great shape. She did not have time to manage her money, much less plan for her future - until she joined Great Eastern (GE) Life in 2005.

Now a senior executive life planner, Ms Toh, 31, offers advisory services to professionals and the affluent.

After graduating from the Nanyang Technological University with an accountancy degree in 2000, she had an 18-month stint with a local audit firm before joining one of the big four international audit firms, Deloitte & Touche, for three years. She then moved to GE. In 2007, she received GE's prestigious Entre-Planner Associate award, which is given to the top 1 per cent of the sales force. She repeated the feat a year later.

Ms Toh is single and lives with her parents.

Q: Are you a spender or a saver?

Definitely a saver. On average, I save 40 per cent of my income in a combination of insurance, investments and bank savings. About 30 per cent goes to business- related expenses, including taxes, and 20 per cent to church tithes and allowances for my parents. I spend the remaining 10 per cent on myself.

Q: How much do you charge to your credit cards each month?

I normally don't charge more than $2,000 and I always pay my credit card bills in full. I own six credit cards and use only two of them regularly. I don't carry more than $80 in my wallet at any one time and make, at most, three visits a week to the ATM to top up.

Q: What financial planning have you done for yourself?

About 20 per cent of my net worth is in cash. This is an emergency fund which can last beyond 12 months. The remaining 80 per cent is held in a combination of unit trusts, investment-linked plans, shares and an uncompleted property.

I aim to increase my insurance contribution to 15 per cent of my income if I get married and to a range of 20 per cent to 25 per cent when I have children. I have $300,000 in critical illness cover. I invest the bulk of my money in a diversified portfolio of unit trusts and investment-linked funds and some shares like real estate investment trusts. I sell them whenever I can make a capital gain of about 25 per cent.

Being single, I do not have much tax relief. I make full use of the Supplementary Retirement Scheme and Central Provident Fund top-ups to minimise my tax liability, which is my biggest liability. I have a will.

Q: Money-wise, what were your growing-up years like?

I grew up in a middle-class family of five girls. I was the fourth child. We went through good and bad times. When my father's business of renting out hydraulic cranes was successful, we lived in a three-storey house in West Coast. Unfortunately, the business collapsed during the Asian financial crisis in 1997, due to his poor cash management. Unlike my mum who was more prudent, my father was always spending ahead and borrowing heavily on hire purchase.

After his business failed, we had to downgrade to a five-room HDB flat in Clementi. My mum likes to keep busy, and back then, she did odd jobs. She was a seamstress and drove a school bus.

Q: How did you get interested in investing?

I started my first investment when I left Deloitte in 2005. I got interested in investing only after I joined the financial planning industry. Prior to that, I was not able to do any active personal financial planning due to independence rules imposed on auditors and lack of time. But I read books on equity investments, and newspapers and magazines. When I joined GE, I had accumulated a five-digit savings figure.

Q: What properties do you own?

I recently bought a 915 sq ft private condominium unit in the west for $885,000. The project will be completed in 2013 when I turn 35. My plan is to sell it for a profit and then perhaps use my profit to fund an HDB resale flat. By then, I would qualify to buy an HDB flat as a single. If the price of the condo unit is not ideal by then, I will either rent it out or move in.

Q: What's the most extravagant thing you have spent on?

My holidays. My most extravagant trip was a three-week holiday in the United States in 2007. My father, my youngest sister and I visited Las Vegas, San Francisco and Colorado. I spent nearly $15,000.

Q: What's your retirement plan?

I aim to be financially independent by 45, with 90 per cent of my income derived from leading a team of elite advisers, rent, dividends, royalties from writing books and other passive sources. I believe I will continue working because of my passion for life.

Q: Home is now...

I live with my parents in their three-room HDB flat in West Coast. They downgraded from the five-roomer after my sisters got married.

Q: I drive...

I don't have a driving licence. I get chauffeured around by my retired father in his black, sporty-looking Subaru Impreza for the first half of the day. I take the cab or public transport for the rest of the day.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.