I don't have a toddler care related epic failure to share, but a bills related one:
In a Family on a Budget challenge my sims were for forbidden to sell anything, the only income had to come from a single part time job. Well, the dad worked as handyman, only on weekends, and they had bills to pay that they couldn't. I didn't care when power and water went out, just played on, because I was somehow under the impression that the repoman only came to collect student debts. Well, I was wrong, and so repoman showed up on the family's door (container) step.
The problem was that I had only two kinds of furniture: the absolutely neccessary basics (not even a bed for everyone, they were taking turns sleeping) and moderately valuable collectables that were gathering dust. For some reason the repoman ignored the collectables and only ever aimed at furniture that my sims needed. After maybe eight or nine "Please take something else"s, he eventually found the only object I could do without: the bees. I allowed that, and I made believe that they stung him all the way back.
Lesson learned, repoman is real.
