The kids are at home, watching high-def movies or connecting with friends through the latest online game, teenagers are [social] networking like crazy and each evening the Netflix catalogue is being explored.
There's little doubt the holiday period is peak data-usage time but, if you're hoping for respite now the kids are back at school, you may be surprised. New Zealanders' data usage on the Chorus network has more than doubled to an average of over 100 gigabytes (GB) per month since 2015. By June 2017, that's forecast to reach 166GB.
It puts us in the top five internet data users in the world - a good reason for consumers to shift from capped plans to unlimited versions, according to telecommunications infrastructure provider Chorus.
The average data usage per household has rapidly increased as ever more content resides in the cloud and relies on an internet connection to deliver it - from our TV content, to music, to services such as internet banking, accounting services, online shopping, school homework, and home security and management.
In every household, the number of devices wirelessly connected to the modem is also increasing.
Netflix viewing too is on the up. The online TV-on-demand service, at last count, was reaching almost 270,000 New Zealand households. Netflix says that the average viewing time per month is 47 hours per subscriber. At 3GB of data per hour of viewing, that's 141GB per month. If your TV is a 4K, ultra-high-definition model, it sucks up 7GB per hour or 329GB per month.
It's likely most data-savvy online TV subscribers will already have signed up to an unlimited data plan but, even without internet TV, it's becoming ever easier to blow your monthly data allowance.
That's because you're more likely to download a film from iTunes than visit your local video store (if it still actually exists), and you may already be listening to music via an online streaming service, plus tuning into your favourite radio station through internet radio.
If your family watches one movie each week, downloaded from iTunes, that's 16GB per month.
For those families which include gaming enthusiasts, the average install is nearly 10GB per game. If that game connects to other players via the internet, there will be ongoing data usage.
Spotify has reported its users spend an average of 148 minutes each day listening to music. At 72MB an hour, total data use for the month reaches 5GB.
Standard web browsing has the lowest data use but can also add up. Using social media such as Facebook or simply browsing the web uses around 2.5MB per minute.
With Facebook usage alone coming in at an average of 40 minutes per user, per day, that's over 2GB per month. Kiwis spend an average of 38 hours per month browsing the internet, coming in at almost 6GB of data per person.
It all contributes to a heavy home data usage, which is steadily on the increase. If you work from home, you would see your data increase even more.
Many homes are now using smart devices, whether it be a cloud-based security system, or a home management system, where the user can switch on or off heaters and other appliances remotely. This can have a high data use: Security gear company Nest say its WiFi-enabled camera and system use about 18GB each month.
Kurt Rodgers, Chorus network strategy manager, says data usage is almost impossible to monitor if you're on a capped plan, with lots of 'hidden' data sucking up the gigabytes.
"Calculating data usage is a complex task. While you can go about it by estimating how many hours of web-surfing or online TV streaming you might do in a month, it's much more difficult to know just how much 'hidden data' is being used.
"The apps and software on all the devices in your home run regular software updates, often sending and receiving data without you even realising it, all of which chew up your data.
"Rather than trying to account for every byte used by all your apps and devices, or risk getting stung with fees for going over your data limit, your best - and safest - bet is to go unlimited."
*Talk to your broadband service provider about an unlimited connection or compare pricing and plans on sites like Broadbandcompare and glimp.co.nz