So far I haven't needed them. When it comes to the families I like the first part where they are starting from scratch and achieving stuff. Once they get rich and have everything I find them a little boring to play with! lol Sooo...I don't cheat the cash. On sims2 I found playing with the Goth house on Pleasantville senario let me experiment with the high end items and rewards since they have 1/2 million to play with.
I've only recently learned the cheat code for the money, and just to test it out.. I tried it one time for the kaching, so far with sim2.
I don't currently know the TS2 money cheat, so all my sims are earning cash the normal way (which makes raising a family on a single income hard).
Well, you don't have my answer on there, so I'll just add it in here: I only use the money cheat to build houses. =) I have a neighborhood where I do all my building/testing etc, and then I have a "playing" neighborhood where I don't cheat at all and just play the game. But, I DO tend to spend more time in my building neighborhood...
I haven't used the cheat code at once (not counting the house my friend made so she could move in her family) I find it makes the game much more enjoyable that way. the money cheat is what kind of turned me off to the first game after awhile becuse it became too complex to earn some cash. I had so much stuff but couldn't enjoy it becuse of work so my sims couldn't fully enjoy the goodies. And since the only way to enjoy such luxeruies without haveing to work was either sell gomes all day (which I started doing at one point) or cheat.
I actually only use the cheat for one guy. Richard Simpson.. He is my jiggolo. In order to do all the things I want to do with him, I just couldnt work and get it all done. So... I kinda decided he was going to be a millionaire. So, I cheated, he quit working.. and currently he has 21 different women in love with him, he has woohooed with 15 of those and is working on the other seven. With all that going on... there is NO time for work.
Ooookay.... I've only used the cheat a couple times, a few one-time kachings for that little bit of extra starting cash. There needs to be scaling of initial funds based on family size... managing a family of 5 or more with $20,000 to start with is pretty tough. Nevertheless, like system_zero said, I find it a lot more fun without cheating.
I haven't used the money cheat at all in the game so far... but my friend who made herself a couple of sims in my game used it to give her sims about $300,000 or more to start with, which I thought was overkill! I figure at some point I might like to have an independently wealthy sim, to play with... and experiment with all the building features etc. But most of my sims I plan to play without the cheat! (Unless maybe it comes down to the situation where I didn't cheat to buy a second toilet, and then the bartender took one of my chairs as payment... and my poor sim had her new husband go on their honeymoon WITHOUT her! What a disaster! )