Here's how I would aim to earn £9,913 a year in dividends from a £20k Dividends and Dividends ISA.

I think it's possible to generate a cheap income of £9,913 a year by investing £20k in a Stocks and Shares ISA.

That seems like a tall order and I won't get that far in the first year. There is no stock in the world that yields 49.56% annually, and if it did, I wouldn't touch it.

Today, i FTSE 100 The index has an average yield of around 3.5%, which would give me around £700 a year in the first year. That's a long way from £9,913. So how do I get from here to there?

I will start by investing in Aviva

I would start by identifying stocks at the higher end of the yield spectrum. Insurance Aviva (LSE: AV) has a trailing yield of 6.83% per annum. If I put my full £20k ISA into that, I'll get £1,366 in the first year. That's nowhere near £9,913 though. So what's my secret weapon?

Aviva has a balanced business that includes pensions, insurance, investment, equity issuance and other financial services products. Business is booming. Aviva recently posted a 58% rise in first quarter statutory profit to £654m. Operating profits rose 14% to £875m. It also increased its interim dividend by 7% to 11.9p.

It is not without risks. Like all companies, Aviva will have good years and bad years. If it underperforms at any point, disappointed investors may pull back, hitting the share price.

Benefits are also not guaranteed. Companies must make enough profit to support themselves, year after year. Like many, Aviva dropped its share during the pandemic, but has been steadily rising since, as this chart shows.

Chart with TradingView

Because of risks like these, I would never invest my full £20k ISA in one stock. I was looking to split it between four or five different companies so they could be differentiated. But my example shows what can be done, by buying shares and holding them for a long time.

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I intend to hold my stock picks for at least five years, and ideally decades. Let's say I hold Aviva for 30 years and it maintains today's yield of 6.83% throughout. In the end, I will have £104,318 from reinvested dividends. A 6.83% yield on that sum would give me an income of £9,913 a year.

Of course, this is a theory. Aviva is unlikely to maintain such a high yield for long. On the other hand, my calculations do not include any growth in the share price. So I could end up with more than £104,318. Last year, Aviva's share price increased by 20%.

What my statistics show is how it is possible to get a high income from a small initial stake. And that secret weapon I mentioned? Time.

Also, I just wasn't going to put in this year's ISA allowance. I could continue to invest year after year, spreading my risk across 20 or more stocks in total. That way, I hope to generate much more than £9,913 a year. And it's all free.