Ditto, essentially I kind of breed my sims like animals to see who has the prettiest babies, and then breed them like mad (even in cases of taboo) to fill a neighbourhood with pretty simmies. 

Most of my gameplay is story-driven so I'll cheat when I need to (except for when it comes to money, I cheat a ton then). Sometimes I turn aging off, so my beautiful sims STAY beautiful (even though if they get old and die I can just resurrect them, shhhh) but if I'm doing a generational family story I'll let them age as normal. Sometimes I force-age my sims out of baby/toddlerhood so that they can have a little more autonomy and I don't have to go back to peek at them every 5 minutes to make sure they're not crying or fussing.
From time to time I use the education adjuster from the insim to take my simmie's kids and teens out of school depending on the type of story or neighbourhood. I spend more time decorating upon moving my sims into a new home than I do playing. I adjust skills or personality when needed (for instance, if a sim in question has a personality that the game won't realistically allow). Normally I set motives to full and then static when doing a story so I don't have my sims dropping everything to whinge at me every two minutes if they need something. Sometimes I'll use the insim to up relationships if things just aren't going fast enough between a couple, once again, for story usage.

...So really all my cheating is determined by my in-game stories.