Spending less can be a plan vs reaction.
If there’s significant discretionary items and it’s been a consideration to include/manage/reduce according to market condition. It’s like the 4% rule - it’s a plan according to historical market performance - or can be a reaction to adjust based upon recent market performance.
It’s important, IMO, to be deferential to semantics and not necessarily minimize or characterize others according to one’s own paradigm.
I remember working on some cost reductions at work, many years ago. There was an incentive plan and performance bonus based upon realized savings. Upper management argued a lot on “cost reduction” vs “cost avoidance” vs “job description expectation” in determining payout. It became very politically connected to get payouts - had to be a “cost reduction” vs other 2. Eventually, it was so stigmatizing that no one wanted to communicate or even work on cost savings as there so many trying to then take credit, categorize, etc that if you got a payout everyone was mad at you (working politics), etc.
Point is - if people are going in the right direction, I’d just give encouragement