Rookie here, looking for advice

[smalone]

Here's my rundown:

Age: 33
Yearly Income: $32,000
Savings/Rainy Day: $10,000
Single
No Children
Financial Goal: $2000-2500/month via dividends within 3-5 years

I have no idea what my options are as far as investing in REITs. While I'm glad to have 10k socked away, it really burns me up that its not doing me more good while just sitting in my account. How should someone in my financial situation go about beginning the process of meeting my goal over the next few years. I'm very good at pinching a penny so investing a certain amount each month to meet the goal is a challenge I would welcome and hopefully reap the rewards of later. I just don't know how to get started in the right direction. Any advice would be much appreciated! Thanks!

[MDM]

Yearly Income: $32,000
Savings/Rainy Day: $10,000
Single
No Children
Financial Goal: $2000-2500/month via dividends within 3-5 years

I'm going to assume that by "dividends" you mean "return on investments" - whether that comes as interest, dividends, capital appreciation, or whatever.

A formula that fits your request:

A = Asset amount currently invested in funds you will draw upon in retirement.  For you, $10K.
i =  Real return on invested retirement funds, %/yr
R = Return on investments, $/yr.  For you, $24K.
S = Savings per year invested in funds you will draw upon in retirement.
t = Time, years.  For you, 5.

R = i * (S * ((1 + i)^t - 1)/i + A * (1 + i)^t)

24000 = i * (S * ((1+i)^5 - 1) / i + 10000 * (1+i)^5)

You can choose either S or i, then solve for the other one. 
E.g., if
   S = $10,000/yr, then you need i = 22.625%/yr
   i = 8%/yr, then you need S = $48,632/yr

It would appear that you need to either
  - rely on an unreasonably high expected return, or
  - get very lucky picking stocks, or
  - greatly increase your income, or
  - modify your expectations.

What do you think?

[minority_finance_mo]

I think MDM broke it down pretty well. You either need to increase your savings (by increasing your income, most likely) or adjust your expect actions. $2.5K of monthly investment income is financial independence for many folks; you can't expect to reach that in as few as 5 years without some serious saving rate.

That said, use use the case study template of you want to start optimizing your expenses, and we can certainly try to help there.

[frugaldrummer]

Depending on where you live, here's another way to start:

Buy a house with several bedrooms (I'm assuming here that you live in a relatively low housing cost area with lots of demand for rental rooms).
Live in one bedroom, rent the others out to roommates.
Use the rental income and further savings to pay off the house.
Then live off the rental income.

Example:
If you lived somewhere that $200k would buy you a 4 bedroom house, and bedrooms could be rented for $600 a month each.  $1800/mo rental income x 12 = 21,600/yr x 5 yrs = 108,000 towards paying off the house, plus additional $20k/yr out of your paycheck = paid off house in 5 years with $1800/mo rental income. Of course, this is not taking into account property taxes and repairs, this could work in some areas and not in others.  If you're handy and could do repairs yourself and build sweat equity in a home, could be a better idea for you.