Safety Pup spared from a side-swipe!

Todd calls me the "Safety Pup" sometimes, because I'm a big practitioner of defensive driving. When I drive I look way ahead and scan for possible problems on the road. When I'm on the freeway I try not to be parallel to any other cars on my left or right, so that I have an "escape route" if necessary. So... this morning I was driving to work on the local roads. I was about 40 feet from an intersection, and I had the green light, when suddenly this oncoming car from the other side of the road looked like he was making a left turn straight into the intersection. He had a protective left turn light, so he clearly ran the red light. I saw this happening from afar, so I hit my brakes and started honking at him a few times. He stopped in the middle of the intersection and I passed by without being side-swiped. I saw it was an elderly gentleman and his wife, and he clearly did not realize that he had run a red light. Phew, the Safety Pup was spared! Another topic... so I finally got into work and went down to the cafeteria to get some regular coffee and scrambled eggs. I noticed that Adriana, the woman that works in the cafeteria, was drinking a $4 gourmet coffee drink from the gourmet coffee bar next door! Is the 89 cent cafeteria coffee not good enough for those that work in the cafeteria? It's good enough for me! Don't get me wrong, I've gotten the gourmet coffee drinks every now and then, so maybe I caught her on one of those rare days. But in general I pride myself in not being one of those who must have my daily-$4-Starbucks-grande-almond-soy-latte-sugar-free-extra-hot-with-two-shots-of-expresso people. Not that there's anything wrong with that (to quote from Seinfeld), but I don't choose to spend money that way. David Bach, the financial advisor guy who wrote "The Automatic Millionaire", calls this the "latte factor". Everyone has a latte factor which can make a huge difference in retirement money down the road. I'm a "Safety Pup" when it comes to retirement money too. I don't want to be caught old, sick, and poor. I'd rather err on the safe side and have too much money in retirement than not have enough, so I make sacrifices now in order to get there. Yes, God can have other plans for me, and should I go see Him before retirement, the money would go to my beneficiaries, which is okay by me. I don't hoard. I just plan ahead. I've heard other people say to me, "well, I'll just work until I die." Well, you can PLAN to work until you die, but it doesn't mean that others will hire you, or that you won't be too ill or disabled to work. What happens then? I plan ahead. My title of "Financial Planning Analyst" at work comes home with me too, I guess. Hee. So this posting kinda makes me sound like I don't have any fun... but if you've read my blog entries, or you know me personally, you know that's not true. I'm a safety pup when it comes to driving, retirement, information security, identity theft, and probably a few other things. But I'm not afraid to live life and enjoy what God's given me. I'm not afraid to jump into friendships with people, even though sometimes they hurt my feelings. I wasn't afraid to fall in love, and look where that got me! I wasn't afraid to grow closer than ever to my mom when she was ill, knowing the possibilty of her leaving us and going to heaven. And she did. But now I have no regrets. So I figured out that what I am afraid of is living with regrets... the "I should have's", or "I shouldn't have's". I try to live my life so that I won't have to look back with regrets.