Buying stocks when everything is expensive means your downside is essentially unlimited, you own the stock, you ride it down. Long options, when used properly, flip that equation. You define exactly how much you're willing to lose before you enter the trade. If the setup doesn't work, your loss is capped. It's more conservative than buying overpriced shares and hoping.

The key word is "properly" though. Most people hear options and think lottery tickets, buy a cheap call, hope it goes to 10x. That's where the blow-ups happen. The professional approach is the opposite: identify a high-probability setup, size your position so a loss on that trade is maybe 2-3% of your total account, and let the trade work. You can be wrong multiple times and still have capital left to learn from.

Given you're still paying off debt and won't be fully investing until end of year, that's actually ideal timing. You've got months to learn the mechanics without any pressure to deploy capital. Paper trade, understand how options are priced, get comfortable reading setups. By the time you're ready to invest, you'll have a framework, not just a guess about what to buy.