OK, I'm a penny pincher, and if you're considering this, you probably are too.  Hauling everything out to a vehicle that you probably don't have in Anchorage, finding boxes and buying tape, putting it all together, addressing it, hauling it to the post office...this is a lot of work.  If the only reason you're renting a car or staying in a hotel is to do this, then you are being foolish.  We have been blessed with friends in Anchorage who let us use their homes and cars, and so we were able to save some money this way.

Here is what I've learned from doing this for a few years. 

Get your boxes from the Anchorage Recycling Center, behind Napa Auto Parts just south of Dowling Road, about 100 yards west of the New Seward Highway.  It is easy to find.  (Trivia:  Anchorage is the largest city in the country that has no curbside recycling)  Lots of people  take cardboard boxes and other stuff to th is recycling center.  You are allowed to dumpster dive for boxes, as long as your feet remain on the ground (seriously).  There are about a half dozen giant dumpsters full of boxes, especially late in the day.  You can find just about any size/shape box you need, usually already flattened and only needing a little tape.  This beats spending tons of money on cardboard.  Do NOT try to do this on a Sunday.  By the end of the weekend, the bins are jammed full, so you can't really get at any of the boxes.  The whole place is a disaster in general on Sunday.  Even on a weekday, by midnight or so things are getting pretty full.

Buy a big ole package of quality tape from Costco/Sam's.  Make sure you get the "super strength" or whatever its called.  Cheap tape is bad bad bad.  It splits down the middle or won't stick to a box because of dirt or temperature or whatever.  Spend the extra money, tightwad!  Spending $1,000 on groceries and then saving $1 on tape that will endanger the whole shooting match is dumb.  Moving on!  You don't need one of those huge "moving" type of tape dispensers, I think the little plastic ones work just as well and are quieter, which is good in the exceedingly likely event that you find yourself using them extensively at 2 or 3 in the morning.  Oh, and buy some big permanent markers too for writing addresses and crossing out extraneous markings on your recycled boxes.

Get to a wide-open space, like a friend's back porch or a parking lot if it is summer, and start tapin' boxes!   Ohhh YEAHHH!!!! Sorry.  Then just throw your stuff in.  Oh, and this reminds me.  Avoid glass anything.  Like spaghetti sauce.  No, no, no.  Get the canned stuff that isn't quite as good but is way cheaper and will NOT explode all over your other stuff and make your box fall apart en route.  If you MUST do glass, then put a few plastic sacks around it, and then a towel or two.  This will minimize and contain the spillage.  And the post office will definitely ask you "Is there anything liquid, fragile, or potentially hazardous?"

To me, the ideal weight is like 45 pounds per box.  But I'm not that strong, and I have to carry my boxes down a slippery slope to a boat, and then from the boat to my apartment (Its all a lot easier in winter when the snowgo can take you door to door,  but our biggest shopping trip is in the summer).  If you can like drive an actual truck up to the PO and then drive it to your place, then by all means go heavier.  The heavier you go, the cheaper the cost is, per pound.  The limit is 70 pounds, and they are quite strict about this.  Anyway, after a while you will probably get really good at estimating how much a box weighs.  I'm generally within 2 or 3 pounds.  Put your big light stuff in great big boxes so you can still get up to at least 40 pounds.  Put your super heavy stuff in smaller boxes, like the size of a box of copy paper, so it doesn't get overwhelming.  Check out the USPS website for the actual rates between Anchorage (zip 99508 works) and your village.

Once you're all boxed up, then just write your addresses and you're ready to go to the post office.  The airport post office is far from everywhere (well, except the airport, duh!), but it is the most convenient with automatic opening doors, 3 good handcarts, and they're open from like 6 or 7 am to midnight, 7 days a week.  There is a computerized thingamabob that is open 24 hours, but it can't take a box much bigger than a shoebox.  LAME.  This post office usually has a long line worth a good 20-30 minute wait.  BUT, if you have 10 or more boxes, you can go to the loading dock.  This is good.  Very, very gooooood.  It is in the building just past the normal walk-in post office.  You really can't miss it, big fence, about 20 loading docks.  Go to the parking lot, find a door, walk in and they'll tell you which loading dock to back into.  Then you just throw your stuff into the building, use these huge carts they have to wheel it to a waiting attendant (NO line) and pay for your stuff right there.  Saves a lot of time and back pain.  And you feel like you're in some secret club or something.  Or maybe that's just me.

That's it.  If you mailed about $1,000 worth of stuff, then you saved at least $200 by doing it yourself.