I play rotationally, in one save. I keep aging off except for the active household and play them one week at a time, then switch to the next household. I use the manage households menu and pick one who has not been played the longest. I slowly make over NPC's and may move them to a different neighborhood, if my game has placed them willy-nilly throughout the neighborhoods before I can get into MCCC and turn off moving in homeless. I will delete NPC's occasionally, if they aren't fitting the game I am playing.
When do I stop? Unfortunately, I didn't realize what I was doing wrong so that when EA updated the game, everyone was reset and I would spend forever trying to get EVERYONE back to the way they were before the update. This fall, with EA updating nearly every two weeks, I have finally figured it out and now and trying to set up a save to keep playing. But, I didn't want the Reaper event to mess it up, so I have kept it out and have been playing with a new set up with only the one family to play the event. As soon as they get the little grim icon off my computer, I will try to put my saves back in and get back to play.
