I have paid for the vps services, bought smartphone, some other tech, and also some gift cards like steam and amazon.
The problem with this approach is that the opportunity costs are so massive.
Today you only paid the Bitcoin equivalent of a few dollar for a VPN service, but in a
few years the few mBTC that you used for the payment will be worth hundreds of dollars.
This is the reason why people are always reluctant to spend their Bitcoins. Holding
has a much better return right now and most people don´t want to end up as the
next "10000 BTC for a pizza" guy.