Result: we’re driving our car less than 400 miles a month. Gas prices are high, but our consumption has dropped to one tank of gas a month.

This makes me feel pretty good, as far as my pocketbook and my eco-values are concerned. But when we’re driving that little, the total cost of car ownership (or leaser-ship, to coin a term) starts to look out-of-whack.

Monthly car-related costs:

• Lease: $263
• Lease downpayment: $61 ($2200 divided by 36 months)
• Insurance: $82
• Gas: $60 (@ $4/gallon)
• Subsidized parking at work: $35

Total: $501 a month to use a car that we drive less than 400 miles a month.

Getting into the minutiae of owning vs. leasing is beside the point. On a theoretical level, neither makes sense for someone driving less than 5,000 miles a year.

But life is complicated: I leave for work at 4:15am. Bus service doesn’t begin in my neighborhood until about 5am. I could walk to work in about 40 minutes, but I’m not excited about pushing back my wake-up time so I can get out the door at 3:50am.

Here’s a Wacky Plan: I could buy a monthly bus pass for $30 and use the bus to get home from work every day. And I could take a cab to work every morning for a little less than $15 a day. Total cost of Wacky Plan: $360 a month (assuming 22 working days a month).

Not sure what I’ll do about this, if anything. I have another year to figure it out.