Tab key behaves unpredictably in email body?

Question

How can I get consistent behavior of the Tab key when typing emails?
I type names and bill amounts, trying to line them up in the body of an email using the Tab key (Mail 2.1.3.)
It's difficult to demonstrate because, when pasted here, my tabs evidently are ignored. (In my email, all these dollar signs line up farther to the right:)
Jim $40
Susan $30
Bill $20
Fred $50
Often, though, everything lines up in my draft message. Then I hit 'send' & look at it in the sent mail, and now the amounts are out of line with each other. Some tabs worked and some didn't. (All in the same Mail application and same message.)
If I use only spaces instead of tabs, it's difficult to get the figures to exactly line up.
How do I do this?
thanks,
Jones

Answer 1

Neue is installed but I never use it, just regular Helvetica.
I'd remove Nueue, it's a known problem.
I guess that's plain text?
Mail>Preferences>Composing, top line iirc, choices are Plain Text or Rich Text.
How does this relate to the Tab key?
Not certain, but many things can effect how Tabs are displayed, where a Tab stop might be, or whether it's even replaced by a number of Spaces.
Not on Tiger at the moment, but Helvetica 14 & Tabs line up in Mail here, of course that doesn't mean it will do the same on the receiving end.