Help! I can't transfer photos from my iPhone 5 to to iCloud...why not?

I can't transfer my photos from my phone to iCloud for some reason. I can't get them off my phone and it is super frustrating since my phone is out of memory and won't take any more pictures. I want to transfer all of my photos to iCloud, log in to iCloud.com and then download them from iCloud to my computer (Mac) so I can delete them off my phone...but alas, it is not working.

I did a software update on my phone and computer (both are running greater than the ios 8.0 or what ever you have to have), I updated my plan to 50GB and my phone under, "Settings, iCloud, Backup" shows that the last back-up was "6:43am" today. I'm golden.

But, I'm not. Here is where it gets interesting. When you log in to iCloud.com and I check my iCloud settings, it says I have "5gb" of storage. UGGHH! So super frustrating. What's the deal? My phone says I have "46.9gb of 50gb remaining." How can there be this disconnect?

The other day after a partial upload, some of the pictures were actually on iCloud.com. In fact, when you click "iCloud" under settings, and then "Storage, Manage Storage, Photos" it shows that I have updated "38 photos and 12 videos" or a total of 199mb. I have at least 850 pictures on my phone and 87 videos. Why don't they upload to the cloud?

So very frustrated; any help would be appreciated.

P.S. When you go to "Settings, iCloud, Backup," iCloud Backup is turned "on." (And it is here where it reads, last backup 6:43am.)

Thanks!!!!