@SimGuruIcarus, you have a save in which you can often see the excessive attraction to a snack machine. It is the toddler neglect save you had me send you yesterday. The mother in that save is a doctor.
It's not as bad in that save as other doctors I have played because the sim has the neat trait. Consequently, she will often queue up to clean something rather than go to the snack machine if hunger is still green but I had a day in particular that stands out in my mind where the family lost the cost of at least 5 meals when I cancelled her trip to the snack machine. It was the last day I was playing the family before rotating to another household so I wanted to be sure she completed all tasks to max out pay and perhaps get a promotion. When her hunger level just turned yellow I wanted her to continue with examinations for a bit before eating but the AI steps in just a little too quickly to push her towards the snack machine. Before a task finishes clearing and another takes its place - boom - money for a sandwich is deducted and, may I add, not refunded if the action is cancelled by the player but that's a separate issue.
I'm trying to get into the habit of hitting pause as soon as a doctor finishes whatever the exam procedure is but the push to the snack machine is so strong and so fast it doesn't always work. The push to get a soda does occur even if the hunger bar is almost full and unless the sim has the neat trait, that soda seems to be the first choice for the game to push towards. I haven't removed the snack machine so can't say what obsession might take its place. With the sim in the save you have, other than a push towards the snack machine, the most common I see are clean, phone and singing. None of those take money from the household and other than slowing down the exam procedures are easily dealt with.
EA StaffUPDATE: As of Laundry day/this month's patch, this issue seems to have been fixed for me. The snack machine itself, however, still appears to be broken, some food options being grayed out when they shouldn't be. Since I don't have some of the mods I used to, though, I have no way of knowing if the issue was mod-related or if it was patched. If it helps, I have not seen this occur again in modded OR unmodded saves.
I will test further this weekend but do feel this has been tweaked. In my game, the doctor is still usually choosing to clean something but think that is because of the neat trait. However, I didn't see such an immediate push to the snack machine when the hunger bar barely moves into the yellow, there was time to queue up a command. In addition to that, I didn't see her pushed to use the phone or sing one single time.
The one time a soda popped up, I didn't notice the money immediately be taken either but admit my attention had been pushed to the front of the lot to be sure a pregnant sim had actually spawned (she had), so I didn't catch the soda in the queue for an instant. Will check that further but perhaps money taken for food as soon as the game queues soda/food for the next action has been addressed as well.
Edited to Add for @crinrict :
Have done further testing and it still feels like some tweaking has been done. I was wrong about money not being taken right away for soda/food, it is. Doesn't feel like the AI is stepping in as quickly and with such a strong push towards soda/food as has been the case before now. I didn't totally escape a push for soda/food over 4 days of playing as the doctor but only a couple of times rather than what has sometimes felt like a constant battle in the past.
