How can I invest £1,000 a month to aim for an income of £45,000 a year

I think the opportunity to build a pot of income in the stock market has probably never been better than it is today.

If I were younger and starting over, I would do things a little, if not a lot, differently. Mostly, I stayed with a diversified portfolio, held for decades, and reinvested my gains.

But I would take more risk with half of my money.

Chips on the side

Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA ), today, reminds me of the opportunities in high-tech growth stocks that I've missed in the past. Nvidia is up 2,600% in the last five years.

If I had invested just £200 a month a year before that, I would now be sitting on something like £62,400. And if I took that out and transferred it to the FTSE stock range?

The UK stock market has made a total return of around 7% over the long term, so just a well-timed investment of £2,400 would now be enough to earn me around £4,300 in income each year.

That, of course, doesn't tell me anything about whether I should buy Nvidia shares today, of course.

The one that got away

Reminds me of another great Nasdaq stock I missed, Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN).

I remember looking at the Amazon in December 1999 and thinking it's headed for danger, and I shouldn't touch it with a boat pole.

I watched the bubble of the dot deflate, deflate knowing that I didn't lose a single penny in it.

But what has happened to Amazon since then? What if I bought even the highest price in 1999, at the worst time? Well, if I had held on, till today my money would have multiplied 35 times.

And if I can get near the bottom of the crash in 2000? I would be about 600 times higher. That's how effective I am at avoiding the surefire loss of bubbles that are about to burst.

Stir in the beans

So, what's a slightly different strategy that I would try if I had my time again?

Which is to put 80% of my money invested in my favorite, boring, stock. And let's assume I can match the UK average of around 7% per annum.

Then use the other 20% to chase growth stocks in the Nasdaq. If I got the total returns of the Nasdaq for the last 35 years, I would get about 14% per year on average.

At £1,000 a month for 20 years, 80% of my money in UK stocks would grow to £408,000. And 20% in Nasdaq can reach £235,000.

And a lot moved to the London stock exchange would get me my £45,000 a year return at 7%.

Are there any danger signs?

Isn't this a very risky strategy? Yes, yes, I can't deny that. Those high profits of the past may not happen again. But I will still take big risks with 20% of my money.

And here's an interesting observation…

Let's say I could invest £10,000 in 10 high-risk growth stocks over the last five years. One was Nvidia, and the other nine freaked me out. I still have £26,000 today.