Virtual Families 2 Guide: Strategy

I've been a fan of these games ever since the first virtual families games was available on windows XP, I think it was Wild Tangent or whatever that came with your new PC, and there was a free trial for this. I bought VF 1 and have it on my PC. VF2 is now available free on your mobile devices. I've started playing it again recently.

Here's my strategy for getting the most out of your experience, getting all the trophies, least amount of time, and getting rich fast (without cheats).

The Strategy

1. For your first family, choose a person that is young (20-23), and has a high starting salary of 105. 
2. After you have gone through the in-game tutorial, have your person do nothing but work on their career. Ignore the mess as much as possible. Buy some groceries if necessary. Praise them as often as you can (they may try to run away) for working on career. In the beginning, achieving a high salary as early as possible is crucial. This means they must develop the habit of working on their career and get those promotions. 
3. Now, emails should start coming in with marriage proposals. In order of importance, 1. young, 2. have same level of "want kids" as your person. (this will give highest chance of having twins or triplets), 3. high paying job 4. same workspace as your person (office, workspace, kitchen). Choose this as fast as possible, I usually accept the first person unless they're too old or really don't want kids.
4. After their marriage, drag one person onto the other. They will go have a baby. The first time right after a marriage is an almost guarentee of successful pregancy. Now have the man go back to working on his career ONLY. The female is unable to work for a "year" of game time. Now the weeds and the socks in the house can be taken care of by dropping her on these things. Now you've had one baby already, probably gotten one promotion, and have cleaned the house! 
5. I usually take a break around after this. The game runs in real time so the real fun is just randomly checking back and see what changes. 
6. Every time you check back and it's possible, make them have babies. If you choose their "want kids?" trait properly, you will probably have kids (two "definitely"s almost always have twins) and you will complete all the babies quests. 
7. Adults should do nothing but work on their careers in the first generation. Kids can clean and weed as well as collect items in the yard. Not only does this free up the parents to work, kids are better! They are twice as fast at walking around and get these chores done better. Never use an adult to do a chore a child can do. It also develops their likes and dislikes, which is useful for their future jobs. 
8. The only things you should purchase early in the game are grocceries, medication (if sick), and career bonus things. Buy two couches as the family grows, six people can sleep on them. Only buy further furniture if they are on "SALE" in the furniture section. Keep the fridge stocked at about 1000 always. I don't know why, but through trial and error this seems to keep them happiest. Any lower and they could run out, any higher stuff can go bad. In VF 1 the career rooms could be maxed on the get-go. If you are playing VH 1 that is what I would recommend buying. In VF 2 you have to wait for things to be unlocked. So my suggestions is the buy the upgrades available, then save all the money you can. One of the biggest money makers late-game is the bank. For no work at all, if you have 70,000 coins, you will make 700/day. That's more than two people's salaries combined. 
9. The first generation is like that. Try to get all of the praising achievements done too. I find they are easier to get if you have more children. 
10. HOW TO GET THE GOPHER ACHIEVEMENT: The gopher one was the one I found the hardest to do. First, you should know that this achievement requires you to spend a lot of time with the game open. The good news is, you can be doing something else, just have sound on. The strategy, that no one has said, is this: have at least 4 children (still children). Whenever one goes to "dig a hole to China" AND "playing on the lawn" (either of these actions, and you must praise both of them often), praise them. I did this for two days. This increases the probability of chasing gophers to occur. What you need is someone to have dug a hole, and THEN a child goes to play on the lawn. Praise them for these two actions for a day. Then, one day, if you have the game open and have sound on, you will hear children laughter. Go back immediately! If you check the backyard, a child will be chasing gophers from holes that magically appeared. Quickly select the green hand and praise them. The trick is to praise the above two behaviors as hard as you are praising the adults for their work on careers.