Should I force myself to deposit money into my high yield interest account even if I am over budget?

I am 33, divorced, with chidren (10&12) and have gotten very serious about saving. I am putting 7% into my 401K and plan to up it to 10% within 2 years.

I have a checking and savings account that I used for my monthly expenses and keep a monthly budget and a small cushion. Four months ago, I opened a high yield savings account (5%) with the idea of putting my excess monthly income in there at the end of each month. the first three months I deposited between 300-500.

This month, I ran over budget because of some unforseen expenses that came up. I always keep a 600-700 cushion in my normal accounts for unexpected expenses. I am thinking that I should atleast deposit $100 into my high yield account this month even if it eats into my cushion a little. It is not like I am spending the money but I don't want to take a chance on making a habit of not depositting atleast some money.

Is this a good idea to do?

I plan on taking the excess (maybe over $4-5000) at the end of every year and putting that into a roth ira.

I like the idea of a roth in case I need to withdraw for the kids education or for a house purchase.

Your idea is fine. If those "unforseen expenses" which jump up and bite all of us come up again, you still have the option of drawing down on the high yield savings account. I like your idea of creating a Roth IRA with the funds at the end of the year but it also functions as a safety net too.

Single mom raising 2 children and saving for their future and yours.

YOU ROCK!

I'm assuming that these two accounts are linked, are at the same bank, and that you can easily transfer money between the two.

That said, the cushion in the checking account is there for a reason, so that you don't overdraft on the checking account. If you ran over one month, it's no big deal. $100 at 5% is only $5.00 of interest in one year.
One idea (that I did) is to have your savings account be your overdraft protection. Tell the bank you want to designate the high yield savings account as your overdraft protection. If you ever overdrafted on the checking account, the bank will transfer a portion of the money from the savings to the checking and charge a small fee (about $5) to do so. This is better than getting hit with a $35 overdraft fee for each check that is overdrawn.

I think you are doing awesome. Is your cusion money in a high yield account? If it is making same high yield as your savings. I would say you need to deposit into the cushion account. Even if is not high yield, I would still say to deposit into the cushion account. Since everything else you are doing awesome alreday, and you need to plan for emergencies (cushion account).