Right – not only is there no harm shutting down, it’s a bit safer. Not much, but a bit.
I always shut my laptop down when I go home and put it in my bag, just in case and it hasn’t failed me yet
Better safe than sorry I suppose.
It takes about two minutes to start up – I think I can stand the wait. 
Why not just turn it off and be sure? Does it take hours to reboot?
I haven’t done this since around 2004-2005, but I used to carry my laptop in a backpack case. I found that leaving the computer in sleep mode would result in the computer being very warm when I pulled it out of the bag–the same thing that would happen if I just left it on. As much as I know about computers now, I still don’t know why that would happen–all the heat producing stuff should have been turned off. It would be like a phone on standby getting warm in your pocket.
I that is no longer an issue.