Dipping toes into high $VIX waters

How to take advantage of high volatility?

Premiums on options are sky high   e.g.  with SPY at 84.17 Jan 83 calls with 3 days left have 1.13 premium on them--total value of option was 2.30.  Break even  84.17-2.30 = 81.87

Situation -- Market down for 4 consecutive days, $VIX over 50

• Overall economic news gloomy, but nothing all that surprising
  
• Approaching lows that had been set in November
  
• Pattern, either set for rebound (most likely), or big blow-off (ugh) 
  
• Strategic decision:  My additional exposure is very small compared to my overall exposure, why not make some money if it bounced?  If the market moves strongly positive (those few big moves that they tell you that make all the difference), I have plenty of participation elsewhere. 
• Could have used debit order, but spreads were very small --- in a way it was nice not mucking around trying to get the last dollar out of it
  
• Position moved favorable initially, maybe could have gotten a $100 profit that day, but next day there was a strong negative move.  My position touched break even at the low point for the day. I'm spending a lot of time checking quotes....
• If blow-off happens, seems important to remember what the breakeven of the sale was, and not lock-in a loss if the market quickly recovers with a roll-over
• Friday 23-Jan--last day of the options--market has nice uptick, trading in the 84.5 to 85.5 range.  I'm pretty nervous though, only $40 or so of premium left in the position.  Unlikely to lose money on the deal, but with a $200 gain for 2 days of investment I'm wondering how you spell greedy.  On the other hand $40 is a significant percentage of $200.  The odds of a 1.5 point drop at this point seem unlikely in the next 6 hours, but hardly unprecedented. 
• Decided to roll over to a $84 Feb Call -- Price of 4.69--premium at that point of around 3.  Did a credit order for 2.95.  The worst case ask/bid combination was around 2.85, the best case bid/ask was 2.99.  Took about 10 minutes for the order to fill--probably squeezed every last dollar out of that order!   $295 gives a value of 3.5% on a SPY basis of $84.  
• It will be interesting to watch this option if the $VIX drops off, as I expect it too.   I need to look at the volatility greeks and try to link that to the $VIX. 
  
  
  
• Closed out February 5th at $81.51 with a debit order of $81.45 -- don't remember seeing that happen before.   Overall profit around was around 2.5