Do you understand your personal finances?

[MarkD]

NajdorfDefense

If a random person came to you and asked you for advice on how to plan for his future retirement starting right now with no initial capital, but with monthly contributions, what would you come up with for a plan for their money?

If that question takes too much to work, are there any books that you would recommend to help with this.

I'm extremely curious about what your answer is (or any really knowledgable investor) as this is basically my situation and I was looking at index funds for my primary investment vehicle. (I'm canadian so that will probably change the answer a little, but I'm not sure).

remember: I'm a layman and have no idea what an alpha or a beta is with respect to finances. I'm really just probing for advice on how to really get my head wrapped around this.