What are the investment options for a salary earner with no ideas?

i have little resources to play around with. i'm interested in the stock market, but my investments are really small. i'd also like to go into real estate but no money !

You can make small investments in the stock market. If you don't already have an IRA or Roth IRA, that would probably be a good option for you. The money would grow until you reach retirement age.

Do some research on IRA's, Mutual Funds, Stocks, and investing in general.

Before you start making investments in the market though, you might want to consider a straight savings plan and save up enough money until you have a larger investment. Everyone should have money in savings that is liquid, easily accessible. You should have a couple of months living expenses in there.

Good luck with that real estate stuff. I have in all honesty, never heard of it actually working for anyone. But if you want to invest in real estate, do some research on real estate investing. There are probably more scam websites out there than there are legitimate ones and most of them want you to pay them money up front to teach you their so called method.

mutual funds are the best place to put your money as a starter. Right now I would advise looking in to defense fund. as long as the war is going on, these mutual funds should do okay. For real estate, may be you want to buy some invesment property. If you have the cash now if the time to buy their tons of good deals out there. But remember location location location is the key to success in real estate. Look for growing community, or if you live in a college town, buy some thing close to the school. Students are a constant suplly of tenants. But be ready to deal with bad tenants.