Are settings universal?

MCaldwell0926 The easy way to remember which game settings are universal and which are save specific in any given user folder is to look at Game Options when you are on the Main Menu.  Any setting you can make there will apply to all saves in that user folder.  Those you can't set there, like lifespan, have to be made with the save open and are save specific.  

And if you really want to be cautious, you can create another user folder which can have completely different settings if you want to do that.  All you have to do is rename the The Sims 4 folder and start the game.  A new The Sims 4 will be created automatically.  After you go through setting everything up, then you can go from one user folder to the other by simply renaming the folders before you start the game.  I do that as I normally play with mods, but I do the majority of my building in a mod free user folder which had different Game Options settings.

Hope this helps.