Let me re-iterate: EQMs are never converted to RDMs. Redeeming RDMs for award travel impacts your earning of elite status for next year only to the extent that you are about to fly some segments (on your award travel) that will not earn any EQMs or RDMs. I.e., opportunity cost.

I would recommend the OP consider not doing too much redemption of RDMs for awards if he's averaging 10,000 actual flown miles per month. That puts you right around the mark of earning 1K status, but if your pace drops during the year, perhaps because you end up traveling extensively to a relatively close location, then you may just fall short of earning 1K, and either regret the loss or have to then learn about the exotic topic of MILEAGE RUNS!

I have had a couple of years where I originally figured that 1K was out of reach, therefore I redeemed RDMs for award travel for myself, and then toward the end of the year, found that my travel pace picked up, and if I had only avoided redeeming RDMs earlier in the year (and bought revenue tickets instead that would have earned both EQMs and RDMs), the additional EQMs would have allowed me to earn 1K status for the following year. Oops.

For many (but not all) frequent fliers, a way out of this conundrum is to freely redeem RDMs for award travel for family members whose tickets you would otherwise have paid for anyway, when you can get a good value for the miles versus the price of the revenue ticket you otherwise would have bought with money from your own pocket. Key here is that those family members aren't close to earning their own status and therefore the opportunity cost to them of not flying on a revenue ticket that earns EQMs and RDMs is negligible. If you're traveling with them on the same trip, buy a revenue ticket for yourself.