Our local Fareway store here in central Iowa has a sale on $4.99/b short loins. They pulled a 28lb one out of the cooler for me. I pondered it for awhile and then told them I would take it. The butcher then asked how I would like my T-bones and porterhouses cut. I said 1" on the T-bones and 1.5" on the porters. Those porters looked huge!! I ended up with 8 T-bones and 4 porters and the 3 pieces from the ends.  The question I have is it normal for a butch to weigh it up first and charge the full dressed weigh vs the weight after cutting them into steaks. He also had cut off some of the fat on each steak. He packaged them the way I wanted and put gave me the ticket for the dressed weight.  Is that a normal thing for a butcher to do. I'm more curious than anything to get peoples take on this.  TIA!!

Yes I find that is normal. If you had bought the steaks from the meat case already cut they would have been 1) cut the way they wanted them cut  and 2) far more money. You got a cheaper price and custom cutting, but you had to pay for the whole unprocessed piece. Pretty much the same as if you bought a half of beef or pig, you pay hanging weight, they process it but you won't get as much product in weight as you paid for.

Yeah, what BigDave said.  I used to have to explain this to my family butcher shop customers.

You bought a big piece of meat at $4.99/lb.  You could have taken it home to cut and wrap yourself, the way you want.  Or, the butcher will do it for you.