Right now. I have paid for goods and services in XMR myself. It's not hard to do, really. You just find a motivated seller and offer a fair deal.
Good to hear that. Can you say more about that?
A previously published example (my largest XMR purchase to date): I purchased a large-format oil painting in XMR; the artist subsequently paid rent in XMR.
Did the artist pay the rent to someone else than you? It makes all the difference.