User Settings - Best Practice

I have been going over and over in my head for the past few days on the best way to implement user settings in my projects. Do I want to serialize and store in one column on the user table? Or do I want to create a separate table with a key => value approach. I decided on the key => value approach as it seems as though it is a) easier to scale should I want to add more settings later, b) searchable.

I have a rough working code base but I feel as though it is quite primitive and could use improvement.

Your critique would be greatly appreciated.

// settings table migration
<?php

use Illuminate\Database\Schema\Blueprint;
use Illuminate\Database\Migrations\Migration;

class CreateSettingsTable extends Migration {

    /**
     * Run the migrations.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function up()
    {
        Schema::create('settings', function(Blueprint $table)
        {
            $table->bigIncrements('id');
            $table->bigInteger('user_id')->unsigned();
            $table->foreign('user_id')->references('id')->on('users')->onDelete('cascade')->onUpdate('cascade');
            $table->string('name');
            $table->string('value');
            $table->timestamps();
        });
    }

    /**
     * Reverse the migrations.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function down()
    {
        Schema::table('settings', function(Blueprint $table)
        {
            $table->dropForeign('settings_user_id_foreign');
        });
        Schema::drop('settings');
    }

}

// User model
<?php namespace App\cablework\Models;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
use App\cablework\_Traits\UserSettingsTrait;

class User extends Model {

    use UserSettingsTrait;

    ...

    public function settings()
    {
        return $this->hasMany('App\cablework\Models\Settings', 'user_id');
    }

}

// Settings Model
<?php namespace App\cablework\Models;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;

class Settings extends Model {

    protected $fillable = ['name','value'];

    public function user()
    {
        return $this->belongsTo('App\cablework\Models\User', 'id');
    }

}

// UserSettingsTrait
<?php namespace App\cablework\_Traits;

use App\cablework\Models\Settings;
use Cache;

trait UserSettingsTrait {

    // get setting value
    public function getSetting($name)
    {
        $settings = $this->getCache();
        $value = array_get($settings, $name);
        return ($value !== '') ? $value : NULL;
    }

    // create-update setting
    public function setSetting($name, $value)
    {
        $this->storeSetting($name, $value);
        $this->setCache();
    }

    // create-update multiple settings at once
    public function setSettings($data = [])
    {
        foreach($data as $name => $value)
        {
            $this->storeSetting($name, $value);
        }
        $this->setCache();
    }

    private function storeSetting($name, $value)
    {
        $record = Settings::where(['user_id' => $this->id, 'name' => $name])->first();
        if($record)
        {
            $record->value = $value;
            $record->save();
        } else {
            $data = new Settings(['name' => $name, 'value' => $value]);
            $this->settings()->save($data);
        }
    }

    private function getCache()
    {
        if (Cache::has('user_settings_' . $this->id))
        {
            return Cache::get('user_settings_' . $this->id);
        }
        return $this->setCache();
    }

    private function setCache()
    {
        if (Cache::has('user_settings_' . $this->id))
        {
            Cache::forget('user_settings_' . $this->id);
        }
        $settings = $this->settings->lists('value','name');
        Cache::forever('user_settings_' . $this->id, $settings);
        return $this->getCache();
    }

}

// example controller usage
$user = User::find(1);
$user->setSetting('first_name','John');
$user->setSettings(['first_name' => 'John', 'last_name' => 'Smith']);

// example blade usage
<div class="form-group fg-float @if ($errors->has('first_name')) has-error @endif">
    <div class="fg-line">
        {!! Form::text('first_name', $user->getSetting('first_name'), array('class'=>'form-control', 'required' => '', 'autocomplete' => 'off')) !!}
    </div>
    <label class="fg-label">First Name</label>
    @if ($errors->has('first_name'))
        <small class="help-block">{{ $errors->first('first_name') }}</small>
    @endif
</div>

Everything works that I know of. Keep in mind that all data is validated before inserting with functions.