Passive income has the potential to help people achieve an earlier retirement. Stocks and shares can be decent vehicles for generating income from their dividends. It’s possible for many people to retire early after investing as little as £100 a week. The historical long-term compounded annual gain from shares in aggregate is often quoted as being in the ballpark of about 7% with dividends reinvested along the way. So investing £100 a week and achieving an annualised gain like that could lead to an investment pot worth around £227k after 20 years and £531k after 30. Nothing’s guaranteed, of course, but having that much money makes the possibility of earlier retirement worth considering for many. But what stocks are best to buy? I’d go for a low-cost FTSE All-Share tracker fund to begin my investing journey. The index is backed by hundreds of businesses, many of which are well-established and paying chunky shareholder dividends. Overall, the dividend yield of the FTSE All-Share index is running at about 3.9%. Capturing that with a tracker fund could lead to decent passive income. As my investment funds hopefully grow I’d aim for higher yields as well from buying the shares of individual companies....