Growing in the low ranks

So, just gotten my 3rd builder up. Sitting on TH5, as long as I keep upgrading my mines/collectors I'm doing fine for both. When my shields are down I'll usually make a go at raiding a bit to get elixir for research and extra gold for wall upgrades.

However, if my shield is up and my builders are busy, does it make much sense to go raiding at this level? It seems like I'm constrained mostly by builder-hours more than economy. Sure the extra gold can go to upgrading walls, but that seems like a never ending gold sink. Not that the walls do me much good against TH6 or 7 players (they don't cost all that much to be raided by either).

So, should I just wait it out for a bit?

It's really up to you. You're right about being limited by time at that level more than anything else. For me, I like to play the game. I find farming fun. So I break my shield to farm often.

Do whatever you feel like. But if you want to stay ahead on resources, just make sure that when you break your shield you are farming more than you lost last time you were attacked.

My main issue is that I already have the ressources needed to build what I want, so farming stuff just means there is more for the next guy who raids me. That seems counterproductive.

Well, if you play for an hour or 2 and end up netting more resources than somebody can take from you in 1 attack, then you earned two things:

1) The amount of resources you gained from playing minus what somebody takes from you next attack
2) 1-2 hours of playtime which you hopefully enjoyed