This Week's Carnival of Personal Finance

This week'’s Carnival of Personal Finance is up at Frugal Underground. As usual there are a number of good posts. Here are some that caught my eye:

Canadian Capitalist tells us To Not Diversify is Just Stupid“. Based on the theory of efficient markets, I'd have to agree.

Tracy of Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise puts her money where her values are with Socially Responsible Investing“. Many people go this route, but be aware that there's a lot of research that shows that socially-responsible investment funds underperform the market. That's not to say that you shouldn't go this route, but that there is a trade-off.

Foobarista of Foo Bar and Grill just got a nice surprise in 403(b) found money: does this happen often?“. Here's some information on finding unclaimed property that might give you some happy surprises, too.

Most of know we should be planning for retirement. JLP of AllThingsFinancial has been reading Eisenberg'’s book The Number. Here he provides a look at the connection between “Inflation and Your Retirement Plan. I also just got a copy of the book (they're marketing to bloggers), and I'll be making comments in the near future.

Buying "scratch and dent merchandise can save you a lot of money. Mbhunter of Mighty Bargain Hunter recently got a good deal on a dryer in “Scratch and dent dryer.

David Porter of Pacesetter Mortgage Blog looks at three ways that people deal with their home equity in “Will Americans Spend the Wealth Created by the Housing Bubble Boom?“: 1. Do nothing; 2. Spend it; 3. Invest it.

Dan Melson of Searchlight Crusade takes on the task of “Debunking The Fallacy of Index Funds.“ He provides some good points, but I still think that index funds are far and away the best route for the vast majority of investors. It's not that index funds are perfect -- just better than anything else.

That's all for now - this should keep you busy for a while. As usual, look around - there are a lot of other posts up at the carnival that are also pretty good.