First of all, thanks very much to Lokicious and everyone else who contributed to the amazing FAQ. It's clear y'all spent a lot of time and effort and I've found it really helpful.

Okay on to a newbie question. It looks to me like relatively short term (6 month) CD's offer about as good returns as any of the "safe" investments. Looking at bankrate.com I see a bunch of different institutions offering these with various "safe and sound star ratings" ranging from "weak" to "superior". And of course, I've never heard of many of the institutions that have 1-3 star ratings. So, do y'all have a rule of thumb about which ratings you'd avoid? I'm a little confused because these should all be covered by FDIC insurance, so if the bank defaulted I'd (eventually) be made good, right? For now, I'm leaning toward going with banks I've at least heard of, figuring squeezing out an extra 0.5% of yield isn't worth much of an increase in risk at all. does that sound reasonable?

Thanks in advance for your replies.