I've only had a pool for 4 months, but this routine has served me well:
Every day - I use the small test to check for chlorine and PH. As other have said, its tough to get a true FC reading with this, but for me, my target FC is 5, which I can pretty much ballpark on the smaller test. If its lighter than the 5 FC square, I add some liquid chlorine, if it is at the 5 square I probably still add a little liquid chlorine based on sun/planned usage, and if it is darker/more orange than the 5 square I'm good until the next day.
Weekly (or more often at first and when something seems off) - I do the full set of TF-100 tests. The first month or so I did the full set of tests much more often until I felt comfortable backing off.