By how much has your funding been reduced?
I don't think it's a good idea at all to talk to program advisers or IIE/Mellon about reducing your time abroad because of an ostensible inadequacy in the level of financial support. I say this mainly because I'm certain that in putting together our budgets the IIE/Mellon folks carefully considered how much money students actually need to travel, live, and conduct research abroad in a given country or city. Also, it may be helpful to acknowledge that Fulbright-Hays grants provide students with far(!) more money than they need to live and research abroad. Better, I think, to readjust expectations for levels of funding and actual costs of living abroad than to tell IIE/Mellon or program advisers that you plan to shorten the timeline of your proposed research abroad yet not give up any of the money they have offered. This doesn't seem to be a reasonable request to me (unless IIE/Mellon cut your funding by over 50%).
My IIE/Mellon funding package is significantly smaller than the budget I originally proposed in my Fulbright-Hays application. Still, they have offered me over twice as much money as other grants for which I applied (for the same project and timeline) and I will be able to live very comfortably during my research abroad. I'm grateful Mellon has come up with any funding whatsoever, and honestly, I expected them to award less money than they did.
