You don't actually spend status miles. What you earn (on flights) are both status miles and redeemable miles at the same time. What you redeem are the redeemable miles, but the status miles stay there (they can't be redeemed). On the other hand, status miles reset to zero each year while redeemable miles don't reset (unless you let them expire).

On non-flight activity (credit cards, airline shopping malls, airline dining programs, hotel partners, car rental partners, etc), you only earn redeemable miles and (usually) no status miles at all.