Lately, I have only used for investments. I rarely use btc for daily expenses or online shopping, since the number of options is limited. Btc has been very useful for other purposes, anyway...
I've been using bitcoins too in real life the same as you spend it. And I can say that I am satisfied the way I am using it and it is much cheaper rather than using paypal for their service. It is just going to depend on your location if there is a local store that is going to accept bitcoins for payment because I know some users in other countries even though they have users but no stores that accepts bitcoin.
Since there are no store yet in my country that accepts bitcoin, I prefer to cash out wherever I need to buy something for my needs, but most of time, bitcoin really gives me comfort as I can do use this in my gambling hobbies.