Share your big fat investing mistakes + MORE Nov 8th

STOCKHOLM – Climate change could push more than 100 million people into extreme poverty by 2030 by disrupting agriculture and fueling the spread of malaria and other diseases, the World Bank said in a report Sunday.
Released just weeks ahead of a U.N. climate summit in Paris, the report highlighted how the impact of global warming is borne unevenly, with the world’s poor woefully unprepared to deal with climate shocks such as rising seas or severe droughts.
“They have fewer resources and receive less support from family, community, the financial system, and even social safety nets to prevent, cope and adapt,” the Washington-based World Bank said.
How to help poor countries — and poor communities within countries — deal with climate change is one of the crunch issues in talks on a global climate accord that’s supposed to be adopted next month in Paris.
Those who say that rich countries aren’t doing enough to help the poor said the report added emphasis to demands for billions of dollars in so-called climate finance to developing countries…

Learn, save, invest and prosper with My Own Advisor.
I’ve written this before on my site but it’s worth repeating:  you usually don’t succeed in life without falling down flat on your face a few times.  I recall Winston Churchill coined this phrase:
“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”
When it comes to investing, you’re going to make a few mistakes and you’ll probably start losing your enthusiasm in the process.  Don’t.  Nobody is perfect.
I’ve made a number of financial screw-ups over the years and I’d like to think I’ve learned from all of them.  Part of the reason why I run this blog is to chronicle those mistakes to help me avoid making similar ones in the future.  Hopefully by sharing my mistakes I’m helping you too.  Let’s revisit some of my blunders.

I bought TransAlta

I owned this company for a few years and chased some yield in the process.  I eventually cut my losses, applied those losses against some capital gains in that tax year and never looked back…

(The Canadian Press)
This story, by Matt McClearn, was first published at MoneySense. Maclean’s will be republishing a series of stories from MoneySense all week for MoneySense Week, a blitz of practical information about your bank account and bottom line during Financial Literacy Month in Canada.
Where does the money go? It’s a question MoneySense hears from readers in all walks and stages of life. Even relatively high income earners are often puzzled to discover there’s little or nothing left over for savings once they’re finished paying the mortgage and utility bills and enjoying an occasional evening at a nice restaurant. The question is particularly pressing for couples in their 30s or 40s with children, who routinely find themselves in a mid-life financial crunch. And while it’s fundamentally important, it’s deceptively difficult to answer.
I would know. That’s because I have an unusual habit: I’ve tracked virtually every cent I’ve earned and spent over the last dozen years…

Nickle and diming at every turn could turn your savings plan into a savings nightmare. Instead try these three, simple things.

Play: 3-step savings plan     
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To recap:
1. Open an account that reflects your time horizon (vacation = TFSA vs. retirement = RRSP)
2. Either decrease your spending in two or three key areas OR increase your earnings
3. Save the difference in the above account
 
Visit MoneySenseWeek.ca for more great money tips »
The post 3-step savings plan appeared first on MoneySense.

(AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)
The pinnacle of Wal-Mart’s grip on North American consumers may have come on Nov. 28, 2008. That was the day a stampede of eager Black Friday shoppers bowled over Jdimytai Damour, 34, an employee at one of the big-box chain’s stores in Long Island, N.Y., and trampled him to death under their impatient boots. “They took the doors off the hinges,” one shaken co-worker told a local newspaper reporter.
Seven years later, it’s difficult to imagine Wal-Mart’s legendary “everyday low prices” could still be a prelude to manslaughter. The world’s biggest retailer, with some 11,500 stores worldwide, has seen growth stall as consumers grow weary of staggering through its blindingly lit airplane hangars in search of cheap toilet paper and oversized boxes of cereal bars. Meanwhile, the chain is under intense pressure to hike wages for its vast army of blue-vested workers. In turn, Wal-Mart executives recently warned investors that earnings will be six to 12 per cent lower this year, prompting the biggest plunge in the company’s stock price in a quarter-century, wiping out nearly US$20 billion in market capitalization…