-Hot tubs can be used to boost hygiene for awkward community baths in case a lot of sims need to fill it
-school projects can be bought at any time from BB mode to boost skills and grades. They boost the skills of the parent or person helping with the project too
-The more you copy a painting, the more the quality of it goes down and it becomes cheaper to have multiples in case you want a ton of copies for some reason
-pets can fill fun and social pretty fast too by playing with them and with a laser pointer
-I put "browse the web" and dancing in discouraged behaviors of clubs so sims don't randomly go on their phones when there's nothing to do. They still do it sometimes, but not as much as before
-stealing from the klepto trait is tied to the mischief skill
-pizza deliveries are handy, 25 simoleons gets you a decent amount of food if you don't want to cook.
This is more for roleplaying but
-I like to use clubs as personality types and for "turn ons/turn offs" and a sort of fear system with the behaviors and the requirements to join
-you can do story progression manually with the play with genetics button, plus the game kinda has the same progression system with relationship and skill changes if they're on the same lot in ts2