I always have at least one Sim stay home while the others go out to work, so there's someone to cook, clean, take care of pets and/or children and do one of the activities that you can earn $ doing, like gardening, wood crafting, painting, etc.
If they're going to garden, I have a "farmer's market" lot (with pretty much every plant in the game) that they can visit to harvest the plants to take home and plant. I usually have them get the high yield flowers like tulips, roses, bird of paradise or the alien plants that are worth huge amounts for selling. I have two couples who have never had jobs except collecting and gardening and they're doing fine.
It's pretty wasteful when the culinary folks have to cook/mix drinks for their daily task and they've got loads of food so I have them invite Sims over with the "glutton" trait.