There's not a lot I do to make the game less "grindy" for most part since I try to keep it semi-difficult early on but there's a few things I can offer to y'all
Turn off aging OR set it to long/epic. A longer life is quite basically more time to learn your Sim and enjoy their life. Or aging off is good if you just want to be a (young) adult forever with no Sim intentions to have children.
The big BIG first lifetime reward I ever get is always Meditative Trance Sleep. You can do SO much more when you half sleep time, combine it with the best bed and my Sims only need 5 hours a night. That frees up a lot of free-time. Carefrees nice too but gaming at a console usually restores fun really quick. (Even my technophobes love gaming consoles)
But otherwise I don't get other perks like Steel Bladder and Never Hungry as to me, they somewhat ruin a lot of the basic "life simulation" factor when you cut out the basic neccesities. My Sims generaly still have more time than needed too after a certain point anyway due to MDS and some quality equipment. Admittedly I might be a bit biased on the difficulty spectrum since coming from the Sims 1 years ago it's a complete different experience to not have Motives decaying almost twice as fast as perkless Sims 3 sims. (Eating also used to drain 1/4 of your bladder)
Another nice "less grindy" way to play is duos or Sim Trios. Big houses become too micromanage-y and rarely can you get the whole house together to do clubbing, and a single Sim leaves you with NOTHING to do when they go to work/sleep. A duo/trio still gives you a lot of time to become personal with your Sims and give them character and time to do things.
And as for money, since you mentioned trying to pay bills. Even without working you can make a fair bit, of course you can either make a Paint Goblin with the traits insane, loner, hates the outdoors, artistic and perfectionist and just let them paint in a basement forever. BUT you can easily make a ton of cash normally just collecting and such. Grab a witch and light a fire in your own house and you make 300k from insurance even if nothings destroyed if you like the cheating route. World Adventures tomb-raiding and Isla Paradiso's adventures in the sea also print money too...
Or if you want to be REALLY cheaty and skip money making, head to the future and get lottery records on everyone in your house then buy an interaction que of lottery tickets. YOU WILL get rich.
And as you mentioned about relations and someone having a bad trait? Such is life. Observent can help learn 3 traits instantly and is one of the first LTRs I get as well, but sometimes you may have to accept that not every Sim is perfect when looking for love and friends. Flaws make them really unqiue.
On the otherhand. There may be some things you might want to avoid entirely like the cheaty methods/perks I listed if you don't want to make the game too easy that its unfun... And the moodelet manager. Don't get me wrong, it's useful but it's almost too useful, it instantly removes negative moodlets and things like being tired or hungry are basically flipped.
