To purchase this, I would need to significantly deplete our savings.

I find it difficult to believe, unless depreciation and depletion absorb all of his income.You can watch an "Investigative Report" about some of the Rich Dad seminars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?

I spent a few months overseas when between jobs traveling which depleted the savings somewhat, but some experiences money cannot buy.

This was what the PMC mainly did to deplete my daughter's funds. 

Terms accepted by a complex owner / manager.In my w2 business we often accept advance payment from our corporate clients, as they need to deplete budget before we determine the full scope of work.  

I could technically quit my job and live off the profits from these 4 homes today but I am more risk averse than that and would like to have more cash reserves after they've been depleted a bit to acquire these homes.I'm always amazed how people are able to build a portfolio of 40, 50, 100 homes and haven't quite figured out how to do that unless most of those homes are under $100,000 (or much less) and they've been doing it 10+ years, but you do hear of it on the Bigger Pockets podcast.So, given all that:1) What am I doing right?

The governments own estimates are that Social Security will be depleted by the year 2030-ish, now with Covid making a whole lot of folks filling for early retirement just to get some money coming in (money going out) and so many out of work (money not going in) depletion will probably be at the end of this decade smh.

Repeat a few times and you will have a portfolio without the penalty and without depleting your 401K.

When the asset or property is dis-positioned (sold, surrendered, depleted, etc) the joint venture is terminated.

I quit my job way to early because I wanted the freedom...or what I thought was freedom :) What I realized was it was way easier to do real estate when you have a W2 job with income as the banks like that way more than the business / selp employed model...expecially when you first start off and don't have a track record.One of the biggest mistakes I see people make is that they don't have any active income and rely solely on the rental income and the rental income is just enough for them to live on.This creates a lot of risk becuase if a major expense comes up it will deplete any cash reserves or you will have to put it on a credit card which increases your expenses and can turn positive cash flow into negative cash flow.