I never knew about people having problems with fees due to small pay outs. I mine to an address on my phone and every so often I move my coins to my savings wallet or the exchange to cash it out. I'm never in a hurry so I always set the transaction fee to .75USD no matter what the amount is. It has never taken more than two days to complete for me. Right now if I were to send one I would make the fee 0.0001023 for example with BTC 7.3k USD
I'm rather with you, actually. I've had a Core-to-Core tx take four days, even with a less-than-minimal fee, but that's the exception usually. I mine to my Core, and only transfer when I want to put it in my "cold storage" non-networked cold storage wallet (actually kept in my safe). Once in a while I may transfer to someone else's Core (or other wallet...whatever they use) to basically sell some of my BTC for USD quickly and locally, but that's pretty rare. Of course, I buy online pretty regularly and use BTC to pay when I can.
Yeah, it can add up...but there are legit ways to keep it to a minimum safely.