Custom Painting
To decorate your house with custom artwork, first your sim must have a creativity level of 5 and be able to paint a still life.
Have your sim paint and a frame will appear that you can center on whatever you want to paint. If you want to paint a picture of something outside the Sims 2 game, just press C anywhere at this time. This will pause the game.
Use Alt + Tab to exit the game, then open a picture program such as Paint and open the snapshot you just took, it will usually be in the folder: C:\My Documents\EA\Sims2\Storytelling\Snapshot.bmp
Then, you also have to open the picture you want to have in your game. If your picture is too large resize it so it will fit in the original snapshot from the game.
Copy your custom picture on to your snapshot from the game, then save the picture. Use Alt + Tab to get back to your game and your sim will start painting your own custom picture.
Using this trick you can put pictures of your friends or family, web pictures, or anything else in your Sims 2 game.
Listen To Mp3's On Sim Radio
First get whatever Mp3's you want to put on the game, then open up MyDocuments/EAGames/TheSims2/Music/(whatever RadioStation you want your song on). Then, Drag your MP3 into the folder. Now, start Sims 2 then go to options menu, then music settings, then the Radio Station, then pick witch songs you want the radio to play. You can now listen to your favorite songs in your Sims game.
Use your own videos for the TV
It's possible to watch your own videos on the Sim-TV. You must put the video you want into My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Movies\Broadcast (the TV sender you want). If you then turn on the TV in the game you can watch it! The video must be .avi-clips and the clips shouldn't be larger then 128x128 pixel also it shouldn't have more then 15 frames per second.
Listen to music included with game
First, open your The Sims 2/TSData/Res/Sound directory. The names of radio stations, plus a few more including Build mode and Neighborhood music should be here in *.package files. Copy and paste the file corresponding to whatever you want to listen to into another folder. Rename it from [File].package to [File].mp3. You can now listen to the sound/songs included in the file.
For Poor Families
The trick is that no matter how many times you use an object, if you sell it in the same day, you can get all your money back. So if your Sim is poor and needs body points or something, buy a body machine and keep selling it back to refund all your money.
Saving Pizza
Have a sim call for pizza. When the pizza delivery guy comes DON'T accept the pizza! The pizza delivery guy will eventually leave the pizza on the front porch, and the pizza will never get stale. You can stack as many pizzas as you want, so if your sims get hungry, just tell them to get a pizza from the front porch.
