Pay for Mother's Day Gifts With Dividends

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Mother's Day is just around the corner, and once again I find myself spending hours searching for a gift for my wife that she will think is wonderful.

A few days ago she casually reminded me of the coming holiday, adding, "And for me a card will be great; don't spend any money." We all know, however, that that's wife speak for, "I can't wait to see what I get this year."

This year, I decided to combine my gift search with my interest in stock-picking and narrowed down the list to products made by companies that pay dividends.

This yielded some well-known companies that provide the following products or services that I know my wife would love: a cruise, jewelry, an iPad/e-book reader, a purse or flowers.

I wanted to see how many shares of each I would have to buy in order to collect enough dividends to pay for the gift before the next Mother's Day.

Following is the list of companies I came up with:

Royal Carribbean Cruises(RCL) offers vacations that my wife and I love. We have taken two Royal Carribbean cruises in the past. The whole industry took a nosedive after Carnival Corp.'s(CCL) Mediterranean accident, and it likely will take at least a year for it to recover.

With sales down but cruise lines paying extra attention to safety in the wake of the Costa Concordia disaster, now is a great time to go on a cruise.

Mom will feel like a queen with a deluxe suite for seven nights. The standard rate for two is $1,900. Royal Caribbean pays a dividend of 40 cents a share, so I would need to buy 4,750 shares at $26.80 a share to make the Royal Caribbean cruise a "free" Mother's Day gift.

Signet Jewelers Ltd.(SIG) is better known as Kay Jewelers where I live. I get to hear the commercial jingle "Every kiss begins with Kay" a little more often than I'd like to.

For Mother's Day, Kay Jewelers has a sale on its 10K Rose Gold & Sterling Silver Diamond Mom Necklace, which is currently priced at $149.99.

Over the next year, Signet will pay an annual dividend of 48 cents per share. I would need to buy 313 shares at $46.47 per share to pay for the necklace.