I'm a bit late to the party, and this would be a very difficult choice for me! Also, to be fair, if I had to start over, I'd wait for a sale and get more than you can get at full price! 🙂
Essentials for me:
20 Realm of Magic (pretty much all my sims are spellcasters)
40 Get Together (I love the world and the club system)
40 City Living (I love the Festivals and I use the yard sale table & street gallery all the time!).
20 Parenthood (I play with families a lot and pretty much always go for positive character values in my sims, I love the benefits they give).
20 Outdoor Retreat (I use a lot of hidden features in this pack, including the reward trait Incredibly Friendly, the ability to stargaze and cloud gaze and the ability to paint landscape paintings which I just found out recently was an OR feature, I've had it so long I didn't realize that). I do also enjoy taking my sims on vacation there. )
10 Tiny Living (I love the tiny home benefits, and use 'modified' micro homes all the time. )
(Total 150)
Honorable mentions (i.e. if I had the same money but was taking advantage of a 50% sale, but will still show full price):
40 Seasons (love the holiday feature, many of my sims become gardeners, all my kids do scouts plus more harvestables. Dislike, weather and the fact that you get way less harvestables if you have Seasons in the game)
40 Cottage Living (I love the world, the errands, farm animals, more harvestables & recipes, & use the Simple Living lot challenge all the time).
40 Get Famous (especially love the reputation system, and use the fame, etc quite frequently in my game)
10 Nifty Knitting (love Plopsy)
10 Home Chef Hustle (love the stand mixer and the two new aspirations and their reward traits).
(Total 140)
Best regards,
Jennifer