My article, “Ripped Off: Can You Trust Your Financial Adviser?” was included in the most recent Carnival of Personal Finance hosted by Mighty Bargain Hunter. Here are some of the best posts this week, in my opinion:

• Monogamoney talks about five things to do if you get laid off. These seem like good recommendations overall, but I haven’t actually been following them myself. What do you think?
• Four Pillars discusses the so-called “death of index investing” and some other silly stats. If you believe you can pick the right stocks or mutual fund managers, or that someone else can do it for you, I invite you to read that post and follow up to the challenges.
• And finally, The Digerati Life asks “When Is the Right Time to Start a Business?” She makes some great points about why tough times might be a good time to get into entrepreneurship.

       In other news, The Oblivious Investor asks “Why Not Go 100% into Stocks?” Young investors should consider his post.

       Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!

       This week’s Carnival of Personal Finance was hosted at MoneyNing. Smiling is the theme, so I thought I’d keep it going by sharing some of my favorite articles and some fun pictures.







   •   Jim at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity talks about 5 Things He Wishes He Knew When He Graduated.













   •   Tough Money Love says Forget Stocks — Vanity Is on Sale!









   •   Chris at Stumble Forward asks, “Does Your Financial Planner Have Your Best Interest in Mind?“.

       I love the idea of building a cob house. Ever since I’ve learned about it, I’ve had a desire to build one myself. It’s a very versatile building material, has excellent thermal mass properties, and is the epitome of frugality when it comes to building a home. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to build my own cob house, but I can watch the process on a blog called The Year of Mud: Building a Cob House. Brian is documenting his own experience building a cob house with pictures and posts describing the process. I really like reading up on what he’s doing, and I thought I would share the blog with you.


       If you’d like to learn more about building with cob, I’ve included a few of the links I’ve collected below:

       Today’s post has absolutely nothing to do with personal finance. I ran across this video a couple weeks ago and found it very amusing. If you don’t know who John Hodgman is, I’m sure you’ll recognize him as the “I’m a PC” guy in the Mac commercials. I liked him in the commercials, in his recent guest spot on NPR’s Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!, and in this talk below from TED. Hope you enjoy!