This Week's Carnival of Personal Finance

The Real Returns is hosting the first Carnival Of Personal Finance of the new year. As usual, there's lots of interesting stuff. Here are the posts that caught my eye:

Free 411 Rocks on Roadtrips: Nickel at Five Cent Nickel give us his recent good experience with 411 calls on his trip to Orlando. FYI - I've been using this for several months (I have it in my cell phone's address book).

Jim at Financial Prosperity tells us what home renovations pay off best in
Best Value Home Renovations Revisited:

A Financial Revolution Compares cash back credit cards. He also has a nice tool for figuring out how much a cash back card might save you based on your spending patterns.

Sitting Pretty discusses maid services and the "Latte Factor" (it's really about fixed vs. variable expenses) in Cleaning House

Do you need to refinance to eliminate PMI? Early Riser looks at how to eliminate PMI expenses.

In What Type of Real Estate Listing Agent to Choose, Dan Melson at Searchlight Crusade examines discount vs. full service real estate listing agents.

Finally, Personal Financeadvice tells us what to keep in our Financial Emergency Kit in case of disaster.

As always, look around. There's always lots of good stuff (and some new faces) at a carnival.