You do not need a butcher's training for this. I will show you what to ask for at the counter, how to break the big piece down at home, and how to make one shop last the week.
The methods I ran behind a block for fifty three years, written down in the order you would use them: the cuts worth asking for, how to break the big piece down yourself, and how to make one shop last the week. Most households make it back on the first cart.
Who am I
I am Margret Miller and I am eighty years old. I started at nineteen in my father's shop, boning out on a Saturday because there was nobody else to do it.
For most of those fifty three years I was the only woman on the floor. It was remarked upon, then it stopped being remarked upon, and then they sent me the difficult customers.
Order the set
Fifty three years behind a block, written down: every cut on the animal, what it should cost you, what to ask for at the counter and how to cook it so nothing is wasted. You are buying the meat manual, the supermarket cheat sheet and the home butchery guide. The meal plan and the Sunday dinners book come free with them.
What you get for $27:
Pay once · Yours forever
Readers
These came in from people who bought the books and took the trouble to say how they got on. Their words, not mine.
Thank you, Margret! Your $50 a week meal plan has worked amazingly for us. I honestly did not think we could get our grocery bill this low without feeling like we were cutting back on everything, but we did. We are spending around $50 a week now, eating well, and wasting so much less food. I wish I had started doing this years ago.
Margret, I always assumed better dinners meant buying better cuts. You showed me how to make the cheap ones tender and full of flavor. We're eating just as well and I'm spending a lot less at the meat counter.
Just wanted to say thanks, Margret. The cut chart and the meal plan I use every week. I haven't really touched the home butchery book ... I don't have the freezer space for a whole side, and you say as much in the first chapter.
Hey Margret, I bought the books mainly for the recipes, but the leftovers section surprised me most. We plan the next meal around what's left instead of throwing it out. It's genuinely changed how we cook.
Thank you. I changed just a few things about how I buy and portion meat and the grocery bill dropped. I'm buying the bigger cuts now, portioning them myself and freezing what we don't need. The savings have been worth far more than the books cost.
What you get
Enough to take a thousand pounds a year off the meat and grocery bill, and to put a proper dinner on the table out of the cheap end of the animal. You look up the cut you are holding. You do not read it end to end.
Every cut on the animal, what it should cost you, what to ask for at the counter and how to cook it. Nine chapters, every method in numbered steps.
What to put in the basket, what to walk past, and how to read what is printed on the label.
Buying the big piece and breaking it down yourself, portioned and wrapped for the freezer.
Seven dinners for a family, the shopping list written out, nothing left over but stock.
The roast, and the three dinners that come out of it before Wednesday. 1,200+ pages across the set.
The arithmetic
I am not asking you to take the number on faith. Here is where it comes from.
That is one household that eats meat most weeks and buys pre-cut at supermarket prices today. Your prices are not my prices, so book four sets the same sums out with the spaces left blank for you to fill in. Do it on your own receipts before you believe a word of mine.
Questions
The Meat Manual, which is every cut on the animal and what it should cost you, the supermarket cheat sheet, the home butchery guide, the fifty dollar week meal plan and the Sunday dinners book.
Your next shop. Look up the cut you are holding and do what it says ... you do not have to read it end to end first.
A video is one cut. This is all of them in order, with the prices written down and the parts that never fit on camera.
A sharp knife, a heavy pan and a freezer. Nothing in the books costs more than the meat does.
Neither do most people any more. The books are written for a supermarket counter, because that is where the money is going.
