Change wordpress user from www-data to my username

Hi,

WordPress is using the name www-data to write files. I am using the username grimpanda.

If I change ownership to grimpanda:grimpanda I can FTP my files over without issue, but wordpress cannot write.

If I change ownership to www-data:www-data wordpress can write, but I cannot FTP.

grimpanda:www-data (wordpress cannot write, I can)
www-data:grimapanda (wordpress can write, I cannot)

So I made a group called ‘webmasters’.
groupadd webmasters

added www-data and myself to that group
sudo usermod -a -G webmasters www-data
sudo usermod -a -G webmasters grimpanda

Change ownership:
sudo chown -R www-data:webmasters . (no joy)
sudo chown -R grimpanda:webmasters . (no joy)

I would like to be able to FTP from my username, and have wordpress write as well. How do I do this?

Should I alter:
export APACHE_RUN_USER=www-data
export APACHE_RUN_GROUP=www-data

in my envvars? I am worried about security if I do this?

EDIT: I changed my /etc/apache2/envvars as mentioned above to my name and now it works if my wordpress is owned by my name and group (grimpanda:grimpanda) and I can of course FTP.

My question now from a linux guru:

Is this a safe and best practice?

Thanks a ton.