Thanks guys, this post has been really educational and I'm sure you guys have saved me from burning my house down! Looks like for my purpose in this particular circuit, I'll be using a regulator instead of a divider as the input may be 7.5v-9v and it will be reduced to 5v. There will be 6 servos in the circuit so potentially the current they will try to draw could be a few amps depending on the load.
@DVDDoug: I've heard switching regulators are more efficient than linear regulators (most posts claim 84% efficiency whilst linears are only 50%), but had some trouble understanding how you would set one up in a circuit. My understanding is you should add some capacitors to the Vin and Vout for a linear regulator to help smooth out the voltage, would you need to do the same for a switching regulator (I was even wondering if I could remove the Vin cap all together and just have one on the Vout because of the way it works)?
A quick search turned this up, so I was thinking of ordering this as it looks pretty affordable in some shops:
Of course, I have to figure out how to wire it all up before I order it 