The Case of the Disappearing Disk Space

Last week when I noticed I only had 5.5 gigs on my hard disk, I decided to start deleting files and programs that I didn't really need anymore. I ended up freeing up about 7 gigs! However, I have since noticed something peculiar...
As I use my computer (mostly browsing and e-mail, no other downloading), my hard disk mysteriously gets filled up. And I don't mean a few megabytes here and there, but rather more than two gigs in just a couple of days! This doesn't seem normal to me at all. Even if I do save files, they are usually just small Word documents for school. A few minutes ago, Finder said I had 10.7 gigs on my hard disk with the trash emptied. After I restarted, it said I had 13.15. Since then, I've already lost .02 gigs and the only programs I have open are Mail and Safari.
Can someone please explain to me what is happening here? Thanks!

Okay, my hard disk is at 12.71 now and a random .rtf file reads 8 kb. I'll check it later (if I am doing this right...)
You don't seem to be doing it correctly. Open TextEdit, create a new window, and note down the usage of disk space reported by WhatSize by typing it out into this window. After the amount of free space on the hard disk has decreased, run WhatSize again and note down what is reported this time. Compare the differences in the two sets of notes.
Another possibility is to choose Go to Folder from the Finder's Go menu, enter /private/var/vm/ as the folder's path, and keep an eye on the number of items in this folder as you use the computer.
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