Custom model methods

Hey guys.
I'm working on a fairly new project, which is storing all setings in a MySQL table (myproject_settings). There are many cases where I need to fetch a single setting, using something like the following:

PHP Code:

$this->settings = new \App\Models\SettingsModel();

$mysetting = $this->settings->where('name', 'mysetting')->first()->val; 


As you can see, having dozens of those lines throughout my project looks way too verbose. So I was thinking about adding a method to my model directly:

PHP Code:

class SettingsModel extends Model {
   ...

   public function getSetting($name) {
      return $this->where('name', $name)->first()->val;
   }
} 


And then, in my controller, I could just do:

PHP Code:

$mysetting = $this->settings->getSetting('mysetting'); 


My question is.. Is it bad practice to add custom methods directly in the model? I couldn't find anything related on the documentation.

Thank you.