You don't need to get a license to work on your own properties and if you are just using it to "save money" on RE transactions, its probably not worth it.  

My sister wants to get involved and will be helping by assisting me in whatever reno projects we can do ourselves (probably just painting, tiling, flooring, and basic stuff to save on labor) and by letting me use her good credit for finance options.

I'm using one of their recommended hard money lenders since I wasn't up to that level of savings yet, so taking out about 150k at 12% and 3 pts. 

Every time I search NWI (northwest Indiana) I don’t see much, save for a couple of threads now years old.

Did you just save up another down payment, and get a bigger income until you qualified?

For a moment when we got the notice we decided to quit paying rent and save what we could to move out because at the point of the notice our landlord just disappeared no where to return our calls so the trust has been broken. 

I would rather wait and save up more money to put down so as to create a cushion making things more financially feasable for myself but knowing people they will always do what they are going to do.

Keep your eyes open for properties that need a lot of work and offer to list it, or to give them a quick cash offer yourself to save them time and commissions. 

If you don't have some extra cash left over after the end of the month you might want to wait until your cash flow situation is a little better and you have saved up some money.  

You won't have time to start the pre-approval process in time to save a deal that you find today.