Is there a better way? Not really. In fact, your plan is actually a good one, and arguably the best approach. The true art will be in terms of how you implement it, how efficiently you write the code, not in terms of how you will store the data in this case.
Of course, there are probably always OTHER ways to solve any problem. But your task should be to find A way to solve it. If it works, then don't worry about finding the truly perfect, optimal solution. Don't waste programmer time in pre-optimizing code that is not a problem otherwise. As you grow in programming skill, your code will improve.
