Straight Answers

My Parents Never Invested. I Have Nobody to Ask.

Then you are the most common beginner in America, and this page is written to you first. Not knowing the steps is not a character flaw — the steps were never taught to most families, and the people who profit from the fog prefer it that way. The entire sequence is learnable in an evening: cushion, match, expensive debt, the right account, a broad fund category, automatic amounts. That is the whole skeleton. Everything else on this site is those six bones, explained slowly.

The machinery, honestly

The Reddit version of your question is asked daily, in almost your words, by people whose parents 'were not financially literate'. The replies they get are kind strangers and a flowchart. You deserve the computed version.
You do not need a finance family. You need the order, the words, and a first $100 placed correctly.
Asking 'how do you even go about it' is not behind. It is the exact first step, and you just took it.

Your move tonight

Run the sequencer with your real numbers. Two minutes. Nothing is stored or sent.
Read the decoder cards for the words your result uses.
Pick your door from the result — one account, one step, in order.

Run the sequencer with my numbers

Included in the $39 First Steps Pack

The Filled Plan pack, the first-account walkthrough pack, the first-30-days plan, the full catch-up tables, the decoder card deck, and the order workbook — one pack, one-time payment.

See the First Steps Pack