Not sure how I'll know when it's time to shock; maybe just do it the pool store way for a while based on a lapse of time; maybe every couple of weeks, or I could go by my OTO chlorine reading after 2 minute reading of FC as the test instruction state.
You should not need to shock your pool regularly. Why do you think that? Have you read the Pool School (it does not say you need to shock regularly -- SLAM is an exception)? If you properly maintain your FC/CYA level and other water chemistry parameters, you should never need to shock except possibly upon spring opening if you closer your pool over the winter.
I now know where I got the alkalinity range that I thought was appropriate (80-120), and it wasn't just from the pool store. It came from the TFP calculator provided. It's right there on the guide that comes with the calculator, so the recommended level chart sort of contradicts the recommended level shown right on the calculator.
In PoolMath in the Suggested Goal Levels section near the bottom you need to change this to "Troublefreepool.com". You probably had this set to "Traditional Pool".
Last summer at times when I'd run out of acid or just from growing weary of dawning protective gear and adding acid, I'd just let the PH go; let it drift up to where it wants to be; around 8.0; and still had no problems with the pool. My biggest worry in that situation was that I had read on TFP somewhere that the FC would not be as effective at a higher PH and thought that maybe that could lead to not enough sanitizing power, which could lead to a cloudy or green pool over time, but nothing like that's ever happened to my pool; not ever since going to the BBB method, even though I've never added that last B or any other PH increaser ever since I quit using the pucks.
We do NOT say that the chlorine effectiveness drops too much at higher pH. In fact, with CYA in the water we say the opposite that you do not need to worry about the effectiveness of chlorine as a function of pH at normal FC levels. If there were no CYA in the water, then going from a pH of 7.5 to 8.0 would have the active chlorine (hypochlorous acid) level drop by around 50% (though it's at such a high level that this isn't very relevant anyway), but with CYA in the water it only drops by 15%.
Also, we do not say that you would need to use all of the BBB and in fact that is one reason why we changed the name away from that because so many people thought you had to use all three chemicals. The BBB name came from The PoolForum as a way of indicating how grocery store items could be used instead of pool chemicals -- bleach instead of chlorinating liquid or Trichlor or Cal-Hypo, Arm & Hammer Baking Soda instead of Alkalinity Up, and 20 Mule Team Borax (or Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda if one also wants carbonates) instead of pH Up. One generally does not need to use products for increasing pH nor TA when one is using primarily a hypochlorite source of chlorine.
So I went moonlighting on you guys to see if I could find something about my situation and viola, there it was...an article about the benefits of running a pool at high PH. Not really following this advice right now; mostly because the article doesn't go into detail about "why it's okay to do this"; and so I'm just being a little more careful about diluting my acid real well and moving PH more slowly with acid, which means whenever it reads 7.8, I hit with a few ounces of acid, instead of waiting for it to hit 8.0 and trying to move it all the way back down at once, and I don't try to move it more than a couple basis points at a time because the times I've had trouble was when I got the PH down towards the lower range or tried to move it too far, too fast. All other times, it's been very predictable and controls the level as expected; at least as is shown with my tester.
The main issue with running a pool at higher pH is the risk of metal staining. That's less of a risk in your vinyl pool and if you don't have any metal ions in your water. However, you can easily get your acid usage down by lowering the TA level (again, see the Pool School for how to do that). A lower TA target (say 60 or 70 ppm) and a higher pH target (say 7.8) will significantly lower your acid usage.