Thanks for the unofficial top 10, Metro!
I used the charisma 'ask for bonus' as often as possible, but also found hacking career performance to be too unreliable to count on.
The other piece of strategy that I haven't seen mentioned yet was the 'Book of Life' that you can write after finishing the Bestselling Author aspiration. Once it's written if you "capture epic saga" of the other sim in the household, any re-reading of the book completely refills all needs and gives a happy moodlet. I had each of my sims complete it, and read before leaving for work and as necessary to fill up all needs. If one of the sims was at work and their needs deteriorated, the other could read the book at home and refill them. It does take awhile to get the reward, but one of my sims was going through the writer career anyway, so it overlapped enough to be well worth it.
Congrats to everyone else - looking forward to the great competition in this year's tournament!