How to handle your alternator life span.

You are supposed to get your alternator checked every so often. AutoZone might be able to do it for you. Possibly free.
If, like me, you don't do this, you might end up with your alternator dying on you on the way to work. Then leaving work that night with just enough battery power to get your car to the Baja Fresh/strip mall parking lot a couple of blocks from work. Then taking the bus home. Then having to have your car towed, the next business day, in a snowstorm, to Big O Tires, (lurid name now that I think about it). Doing it my way is more expensive in terms of time, money and frustration.