How do you say NO to giving people money as a Gen Xer without feeling like you are "pulling up the ladder?"

This is something that has happened over the last 7 years and it dawned on me that because I have been helping so many people, I haven't saved anything up for my own retirement. I guess I felt like I had more time.

Especially during Covid I was giving away (not loan) tens of thousands of dollars to help people paying rent, finishing off college, catching up on old mortgage payments. I mean it was endless. I would always help younger people who were estranged from their families because I went through the same thing and I know how most people don't understand how hard it is to have no one to turn to to ask for help.

I finally put a kibosh on the whole thing when I moved to another state and realized that no one is likely to hire me at 55F and so I need to be really careful because 10 years is a long haul to retirement.

But for the last week this one woman I helped keeps sending me payment requests through PayPal. This is someone I have blocked already and had major discussions because she bought a house that I don't know how they sold her, because she cannot afford the monthly mortgage payments. I helped out with buying bedroom furniture, all sorts of supplies and household items. Also bought air conditions and space heaters just in case. But I kept telling her that her situation was unsustainable. Even with all my help she was still not able to make her payments. I must have given her about $20,000 over the course of a two years and again kept telling her this was unsustainable. She needed to get a roommate or a second job.

She's a single mom of two young and a certified teacher. So she makes about $97,000 a year. The problem is that she bought a house around 2 hours away each way and so she's eating up all her money in gas payments. If she moves her job to the state she bought the house in, she loses tenure and her salary will drop $20,000

She also has an ex husband she has never asked for child support. I told her that it's not her money to not take and he has a legal obligation to pay it One more important point is that she has no parents or grandparents family support of her own.

All of this above I have been adamant about and gone in circles and even gotten angry to the point of losing my cool so we cut off contact.

Yet she still is sending me PayPal requests with things like "Food Please!!!" And I feel guilty about her two little boys. But I know if I send she's never going to stop.

Am I right to believe that it should be impossible for her not to actually have food for her children? There are food pantries near her that I suggested that she go to during the SNAP crisis. A lot of them got overrun with food and were basically begging people to come to take it. So, I know she has access. I also know (she lives in CT) that there are plenty of places like YMCA that will help out. She's also a teacher and definitely has access to resources?

Am I just coming up with excuses? Or is it possible that she really wouldn't be able to get food for her kids?

How do you make a firm plan and say NO? I always feel soul crushingly guilty because I depended on a lot of people who helped me when I was a struggling mom with no family. I felt like I was paying it forward, and now I feel like I'm pulling up the ladder.