ICloud Backup Issues on iPhone & iPad Air: NOT Enough Storage (5 GB)

Question

I've been a user of the free 5 GB of storage since its inception without any problems.  I was backing up data on my iPhone and 3rd gen. iPad on a regular basis and never ran into any issues.
I recently upgraded to an iPad Air and set it up using a restoration and it went off without a hitch.  The very next day I started noticing these warnings that I was approaching my storage limit even though I had not really changed the amount of data on my phone or the Air.  I don't download lots of apps and basically only update them when necessary.  I use iTunes Match, so I stream my music from the cloud so I don't have audio files on any devices, with the exception of my iPhone for those times I don't have access to wi-fi -- and it's always been the same number of files/same size.
(The iPhone is showing 3.5 GB in use and the Air is showing 1.3 as of this post).
I do have a fair amount of photos in the iPhoto stream as I'm always snapping something, but not to the point of being obssessed. And I always am moving them into iPhoto/Aperture and deleting them frequently, so I'm not talking about thousands of photos being on either device at any time.
In other words, I'm like the average user when it comes to the amount of data on my devices -- and am not going overboard where it's at the point that I know I have to delete things to make room.
I've scrutinized the file sizes of everything I possibly can in the settings on both devices yet I'm still getting the warning that I don't have enough storage space.  I find it hard to believe that something during the process of setting up the Air pushed my storage over the edge to where I actually need to purchase space because I just am not seeing any deviation from what I used to do before setting up the Air.
I deleted the 3rd gen. iPad backup as well as any other old backups from iCloud which are no longer relevant each and every single time I've upgraded any device.  I don't have anyone else using these devices other than myself so no one is downloading apps, snapping pix, or doing anything which would add data.  I did a quick glance at the forums to see that lots of people have this problem - so I'm wondering if it's some type of glitch?
My iPhone told me today that I had not backed up to iCloud in weeks - which I'm sure refers to the time right around I bought the Air - as I have my devices to auto backup when connected to wi-fi. The last backup according to settings was 5/6 -- while the Air was on 5/16.
This is very annoying as I don't want to have to buy the next level of storage just to rid myself of this message so I'd be interested to know what others have tried.  Sure, I can just do a complete backup of all my devices to my computer -- which I do fairly regularly -- but it was always good to know that I had access to iCloud backups for those times I didn't hook things up to my MBP.
Does anyone have any suggestions as to things I can try to rid myself of this dreaded message? It pops up daily and I really would love to fix it.   Thanks!

Answer 1

I think I figured it out.  I went through my iPhone and turned off a lot of the apps that were slotted to backup and it appears to done the trick as the phone is backing up to iCloud.
The language needs to be broken down where it makes more sense of what's happening behind the scenes during these backups as I think it can be easily miscontrued that it's the data the various specific apps are using which is the issue at hand and not them apps themselves is what's causing the increase in size; some people may think that if they turn these apps off, they are deleting the apps from their devices so they leave them all switched on which ends up bumping up the size and ultimately eating up storage space.
I admit to not really paying attention to what the explanation was saying when I initially got the error message which made me initially post this.  Now that I'm rationally thinking, I can see the problem of the disappearing space and am off to turn off a handful of apps on the Air to reduce the storage allotment even more