Money is pretty broken, yeah. It's fun at first, trying to scrape by, but all you need is a place to rent, toss some furniture in it, lather, rinse, repeat, and pretty soon you've got more money than you can use, and own every place in the game.
I hear the upscale spouses in the game are really shrill, needy, and annoying. I never married one of those. There was a farmer in Oakdale (normal), a stylist in Bowerstone (Lewd, Randy), and the snap-together undead GF in the cemetary mansion. They all wanted it all the time.