So just to test my understanding, when I am finished with my bitcoin client for the day I could save a copy of the wallet.dat file, delete the copy that is in the folder. At this point if i lost my laptop I am safe? assuming I dont lose my laptop i can load place the saved wallet.dat file back in the correct folder and it will be good to go?
Unless you use an encrypted filesystem, there are traces of the wallet.dat left on the hard drive. There are tools available to scan a hard drive looking for private keys.
Instead you want to use the passphrase encryption feature available in the Bitcoin-Qt client to protect your wallet.dat so you don't need to worry about losing your bitcoins if you happen to lose your laptop. Either way, you do want to keep a backup (or preferably set of backups) of the wallet.dat in case you lose access to the laptop or the data stored on it.