My brother runs a food truck in Boise and he did the same thing, held onto his swipe reader until a customer cussed him out over a declined card in the middle of a lunch rush. He switched to tap only and his failed payments dropped from around 2.8 percent down to basically nothing. Here is the thing though, his per swipe fee did go up a little, but he stopped losing whole sales to declines, and a lost sale costs way more than a few extra cents. So I guess it depends on your ticket size, if you are selling $8 burritos the fee stings more than if you are invoicing a $900 move. For you the tap reader probably pays for itself just by not eating those 3.1 percent failures anymore.

Clean that screw monthly, that wad kills motors.

The "let the fluid sit for 30 seconds" thing is what got me too. I used to spray and wipe right away like I was cleaning a window, and yeah, I was basically grinding dust into the glass. Waiting feels wrong because you want to get it over with, but the stuff needs time to break down the oil first. Even now I have to remind myself to slow down, because 15 years of muscle memory does not go away overnight.