How do you play rich families?

[Wiry]

Must say you guys have interesting ideas on how to play rich families.
More than once I personally find that in games (not just Sims) having a huge bank account suck the fun out of the game quite quickly.
And often.

I don't have that.
To me the fun is the destination (The high bank account), not the journey (Getting that bank account).

I have terrible staying power in ANY game where I have to really work to get places. I can do that in real life, but I play a game to escape reality 

For more ideas on how to play rich families, I often think of some incredibly exaggerated, narrative driven goal like taking over the twon, not just including properties, but forcing everyone onto your side, or using your wealth to make them irrelevant (Firing them every time they get a job)

[Leto85]

I remember just building ridiculous rich houses which were so expansive my sims needed to cash +30.000 every so much days in order to just pay the bills.
I had a team of writers and painters just for that.
That was challenging.

[Kaye]

I don't play pre-made families much, but I used to build expensive houses for my own sims to live in. They'd start off with a very extravagant house and about 20,000 in funds (depending on how many sims I made for a household). I would give them careers I hadn't done with another sim yet, but I got bored rather quickly because they essentially had nothing to save for. Merely watching them build up their funds and never spending it was boring. Even upgrading and rearranging the house and objects (something I really enjoy doing) was tedious because it wasn't much of a change.

Now, I start my sims off in one of the premade houses or on an empty lot and go from there. Much more fun and I enjoy seeing the house get bigger and bigger. You can see this in my Aley Legacy. My founder started off in a pre-made house. I'm currently on the fourth generation and, I tell you, the house looks almost nothing like it did when I first started. And I might be doing even more renovating on it! I can't remember how much they have in household funds, but I know it's well over $150,000, but I rarely get bored with them and when I do, I try to make something happen.

[Randox]

I have a desire to seeming play both rich and poor aims. Back when it was just the Sims, I would create a house leaving only perhaps a couple hundred left over, and play with an unemployed (or all children) household, and see how they did on good grade money.

I've done a bit of a 180 for this game though. Rather than start off with everything and play with virtually no income, I am starting in the dirt and aiming to have everything. I don't want to have more money than I can spend, I don't think I would enjoy the lack of challenge. I spend most of the money on the house, and on trips for adventures, and at some point, on a vacation home. I figure that should I ever get to a point where I can't spend the money fast enough, or just want to go back to being a little less wealthy, I can always buy up undeveloped community lots and build things like the community pool myself, out of my own pocket. In this way, I can be that philanthropist, giving back to the community by sinking a future fortune into the amenities, and preserving some of the challenge.

[violaine]

I like when I can spend money as soon as I have and smoothly rise up with some limits.

This usually happens only for a very few sim-weeks starting a new game. When my garden is full of perfect products, my walls are covered by the painting and more books as I can read and all my sims are young adult 1 day, I know I'm going to be bored pretty soon.

After that I'm always too rich, I build a giant house and I started over again with a new founder.

Thanks to the challenges I got new motivation and fun to play, first time I'm going to my 4th generation. After some hard work excluding any "supernatural power or potion or..", they are super rich (3 million in cash, a 3 million house as big as I never build before and a lot of real estates already...) So all of them could stop to work and I would never find a way to spend all.

But but but I have a challenge in mind and that's keeps me real busy and happy to play. Try one of them, and your rich family will know what they have to do.

[Susinok]

It's fun to read how everyone plays. My Hidden Springs legacy is in it's 7th generation and it still only has bout 350,000 in the bank, but the lot is worth about the same. I have been buying and building in town, upgrading real estate, and travel a lot. But compared to some of you, my Moore Household is nearly as wealthy as some of yours... and only on a 40x40 lot to boot.

[sunshine_2406]

I find rich families can get quite boring unless you have a goal in mind. My immortal dynasty family has over 1 million simoleons and I generally leave them to do what they wish. Their house is worth the same amount so they have loads of gadgets to play with. I also send them to the spa to get the most expensive treatment so they have a great big positive moodlet for a week

[Playalot]

My sim won 1,000,000 in the lotto. It nearly ruined my game! lol I had to really rethink where I was going with the story. Once I had some new goals etc it was really fun, but I did spend about one sims week just going through the daily routines wondering how my fabulously wealthy sims were going to spend all that money!
Oh the pressure of wealth 

[PurplrPrincess]

I don't know if anyone has mentioned this, but if I'm playing a rich family -mostly without cheats - I like to either redesign their house to make it look like a fancy mansion. Or I move out to an empty lot and make a mansion from scratch. I'm not the best at it, but I do have fun with it!

[Serenity S.]

Usually I make lots of children, then, when they become older I purchase small houses around town, upgrade them and move the grown-up children there. A good way to practise building and decorating without the risk to end up with boxhouses. Takes up quite a lot of money, but usually is worth it. And besides, where is the fun of being rich if you never waste any money 

[Fleiding]

I don't play pre-made families much, but I used to build expensive houses for my own sims to live in. They'd start off with a very extravagant house and about 20,000 in funds (depending on how many sims I made for a household). I would give them careers I hadn't done with another sim yet, but I got bored rather quickly because they essentially had nothing to save for. Merely watching them build up their funds and never spending it was boring. Even upgrading and rearranging the house and objects (something I really enjoy doing) was tedious because it wasn't much of a change.

Now, I start my sims off in one of the premade houses or on an empty lot and go from there. Much more fun and I enjoy seeing the house get bigger and bigger. You can see this in my Aley Legacy. My founder started off in a pre-made house. I'm currently on the fourth generation and, I tell you, the house looks almost nothing like it did when I first started. And I might be doing even more renovating on it! I can't remember how much they have in household funds, but I know it's well over $150,000, but I rarely get bored with them and when I do, I try to make something happen.

This is exactly the way I'm doing it as well. I love designing luxury homes for fun, but if I'm playing a family I'd rather let them work hard so I get a feeling of accomplishment.

[athena]

I've got a couple of very rich Sim families I constantly play with. First, I build for them a house out of Architectural Digest. I love being able to build those mansions from scratch and see the Sims move around and live in them.  My richest family, the Prince brothers, buys all the biggest establishments in the city (just for fun), they don't even bother to collect the proceeds. The eldest brother a five star celebrity CEO, drives around in the most expensive and fastest sports car. In Isla Paradiso, they bought their own island and they have a sleek black speedboat and yatch. They are the first and only family in the game to have an elevator in their house.  There came a point where life was becoming boring to have anything they wanted, so I set each of them off in Adventures, and they built a Relic Collection Room in their house.   

[MeganNicole]

As other members of the forum have mentioned, I love designing fancy mansions. It's nice to be able to build/design without being on a budget!  Typically, the rich families I play with will be townies. I think it's fun to follow their biographies and see where the game takes them. I also think playing rich townie Sims is a great way to explore new towns, skills, and other game features without the worry of scant household funds.

I don't play rich families as much as I used to when I first started playing The Sims 3, but they are fun to play every now and again!

[Lisa46]

I just buy a ton of properties and upgrade them all. I buy EVERYTHING I can, and decorate every room so it's just amazing-looking. If I can make that happen. I'm not the most awesome builder. 

[Benie]

With me, my original Sim, I wanted him to feel like he only can survive with the clothes on his back. Yet he was able to make a profit from his Ghost Hunter work. Decided for him to go to China, seeing how ridiculously cheap it is compared to real life. He made more than he did with his Ghost Hunter job, which made the job almost pointless to keep, but I kept it anyway since I liked the career.

Then he got married to a rich Sim (not part of my plan. Seriously, didn't know she was rich) and inherited her fortune, giving him 4x what he originally had. Much later, moved into a smaller house but had $140,000, and was considered 'Rich'. Apparently, having $100,000 or more is considered being rich.
Now, the money is flowing in. My Sim hasn't worked (neither does the wife) because there's just so much money, and as I said again, makes his job a bit pointless. He still gets paid a $2,000 stipend, from working or not. Which seems unfair to me. You should have to at least do one job to qualify for a stipend, yet the game doesn't see it my way.

I personally don't want to live in luxury. Just looks too over the top. I like things simple, why the wife is the maid instead of hiring one.

I personally don't care to own properties. Again, I don't like feeling rich. Feels wrong. Whoever said "money can't buy you happiness" is absolutely right.