Advice for going from colouring hair for fun to colouring hair to cover greys

I (F,37) have been colouring my hair for a good 20 years. My natural colour has always been a “dirty blonde”/brown colour. I’ve been doing half-head blonde highlights 3x year, full head 1x year.

I just love the brightened look, and all in all, my hair is really healthy.

Over the last year or two, I’ve had random greys come in, and the highlights have helped to mask it. But alas, I think I’m at the point where, if I want to hide my greys, my long-standing hair colouring approach needs to change because they are just everywhere now. Mad love to the women who embrace their grey at any age…I’m just not ready for that.

I think the ideal solution would be to get highlights touched up every 6 weeks, but that is expensive, time consuming, and unhealthy for my hair.

Another thought I had was to go balayage, so I could get a regular root touchup and then brighten it up on the ends occasionally. My worry about this is that the colour at the root will fade, then as it grows, I’ll have my natural brown, grey, faded colour, AND blonde ends all at the same time. (Is that true?)

Ultimately, my goal is to cover my greys and maintain a hair colour that feels “like me.”

Any recommendations for what to do?

(I do have a stylist but want to do my research and get a sense of what options may be before I sit in her chair in a few weeks time.)