My car turned two years old yesterday, which made me wonder how much it costs to operate per mile. The 2006 edition of AAA's "Your Driving Costs" study showed that the overall average cost of owning and operating a passenger vehicle in the US is 52.2 cents per mile. Bermuda car ownership must be more expensive, but I have no idea how much more expensive — yet.I'm going to work it out now, before your very eyes. All your numbers will differ from mine, obviously, but if you're interested in knowing, you can follow what I do for my car and substitute your own details. If your records are less detailed than mine, make an educated guess.

Here we go. It's actually kind of scary. If the cost turns out to be ridiculously high, which I suspect it will, I'm going to have to debate whether to keep the car or give it up in favour of a bike or the use of my legs. Either of those options is scary.

1) The first cost to calculate is what's called the annual depreciation. It's the cost of owning an asset that loses value with every passing day, which is the worst kind of asset to have. I bought the smallest, cheapest car in Bermuda. It's a tiny, tinny Hyundai, probably. It might be a Suzuki. I neither know nor care. It's blue. I don't use it much.

The car originally cost $17,576, on the road. That included Government registration and plates and other unavoidable costs. After two years of driving, even as few miles as I do, the car probably wouldn't sell for much more than $8,000, so it has lost value to the tune of $9,576 in the two years.

(That figure may be a little high, since I might be able to sell the car for more, but I have decided against calculating the interest I could have earned had I not brought the car, known as the "opportunity cost", to make the whole ugly business one step quicker.)

2) Insurance ran $228 in the first year, when I apparently only had third party coverage. The second year, comprehensive cover cost me $637.05. So that's $865.05 for insurance in the two years.

3) The car has to be registered annually with Government, so that it can be licensed for use on Bermuda's roads. Year one cost $237.32; year two cost $289.61. Total: $526.93.

4) Because of the absurdly low mileage, I only have the car serviced once a year. That may be a false economy, but at the end of the first year the service cost $229.69, and a year later, just a basic service plus fixing a mudguard ran $607.80. That's $837.49 for service, which seems absurdly high. I'm beginning to think I'd do better to hire four guys to carry me to and from town on a throne.

5) Gasoline cost me $1,407 for the two years, including tips but excluding candy bars purchased in the store while the gas gets pumped.

6) Finally, all other expenses. A flat battery cost me $70 for the Mobile Fix-a-Flat guy, one of the Island's most helpful souls. One year's rust-proofing was $75. I didn't renew it, long story. Eight parking tickets: $400. One speeding ticket: $300. All the other bits and pieces that go with the car, like mats and decals and wider wheels and fuzzy dice all that junk, $0 in my case, included here solely to remind you to count such items when you make your list.

Now, we add up the cost of depreciation and all the cash that poured out of my pockets. For the two years, running the car cost me a total of $14,057.47. So it's costing me seven grand a year, or $135 a week, all up. I'd rather spend the money on almost anything else, or save it.

In the two years, I have driven a grand total of 7,280 miles, or an average of a few yards under 10 miles a day. So the cost per mile (dividing the cost by the mileage, as you would expect) is $1.93 a mile.

That's not as bad as I thought. It means that a trip to Hamilton, which involves driving there and around town and back, say 30 miles in all, costs me $58, which is not a great deal less than a taxi would cost. I would gladly sell the car and take taxis, but living where I do, a taxi can be hard to come by, i.e. impossible. Plus, having a car, one is often required to give people rides, deliver pianos, and so forth.

$1.93 a mile, eh? Your figure will probably be smaller, since you might drive rather more than I do. The national average annual mileage in the States is about 15,000. I don't know what Bermuda's average would be; smaller, I would have thought. If I drove 15,000 miles a year, my cost per mile would be about $1.12. And I'd lose my mind.

Having done all that calculating, I can't see much advantage from knowing. If it had been $12 a mile, which was my original guess, I might have sold the car, but there are times when I simply have to be somewhere. I'm not going to switch to a bike, and I'm not going to rely on taxis. But at least I know.

The best thing I've discovered is that I can save $58 just by staying home from work. I will probably never go to work again. A few weeks like that, and I'll be rich.