Monitoring internet usage

BitMeter II this is a handy tool that may help you >>> Codebox Software - BitMeter II

BitMeter features:

Audio notification at regular (configurable) time intervals - different tones are played according to your current upload or download speed (tone boundaries are also configurable)
Audio notification each time a certain amount of data is transferred (uploaded, downloaded or both)
Animated System Tray icon shows upload and download speeds
Check for new version (with auto-check option and proxy support)
Select any combination of network cards to monitor or ignore
Configurable graph scale - set to any value, or set to auto-adjust according to your speed
Connection Speed Helper
Option to display current graph maximum on screen
Change units used in readout (Kb,KB,Mb,MB)
Change graph type (bar or line graph)
Interval bars with adjustable time period
Adjustable scroll interval (anywhere between 1 and 60 seconds)
Save favourite colour combinations for later use, or use one of the preconfigured colour-schemes.
Configure System Tray tooltip information (including speeds and days totals)
Show or hide readout area, or adjust its font-size.
Auto-start option for current user, or all users
Manual and automatic backup options of configuration and traffic history information.
....

and many more

also there is a BitMeter OS from same developers >>> Codebox Software - BitMeter OS

The Web Interface displays various graphs and charts that show how your internet/network connection has been used over time, why not try out the online demo right now?

The Monitor pane displays a graph that updates once each second, showing you what's happening with your connection right now:

This is what you want I think - NetLimiter - The Ultimate Bandwidth Shaper. I wouldn't say it's perfect but I think it'll help. Only problem is it's a 30 day trail. If you discover where your data is going then you might not wish to purchase unless you wish to check further down the track.

I've attached a screenshot to show you how to read the data use from individual programs.
No. 1 - right click your computer name and from the pop up menu select Stats.
No. 2 - Change the drop down box to Apps download.

You can also select the time period from the box with the dates in it.

Albeit, a little late in the discussion, I found Networx to be a good little program. It allowed me to monitor each person, and sync the data between all installed machines. It can even be setup as a service, and its open source.

bigseb said:

Thanks Duzzy, that's looks interesting, I'll definitely check it out.

On a related note, someone suggested it may be the anti-virus. Something about it downloading the same updates over and over but not installing them. I use Avira (the free version). Could this be the problem?

I'm not sure about the antivirus you could open it to the manual update section. If it's like Avast it will tell you the current version of the definitions and the release date. If the release date is older than 4 or 5 days since you last used your computer then it's a good chance it's not installing them. You could then try manually updating them and see if the version changes.

Things you could consider:
Do you use Facebook and play the games on it? (I think they take a bit)
Do you watch a lot of YouTube videos in 720p? (One 4min video came in at 32.4mb)
Does you ISP count uploads?
Do you use a Torrent client?
Do you upload files to any sites?