In 2012 I was living with my parents in Welling, a town bordering London and Bexley [says Olutosin Aduloju]. I was fresh out of university and I was trying to find my feet. I was doing telesales jobs to earn money. I applied for a council flat and in 2013 I got one: a two-bedroom flat in Plumstead, southeast London.
I’ve always had a passion for food. I was always watching shows like MasterChef, but it took quite a while for me to have the courage to start my own business. One day I took a summer job working at a hot dog stand called Big Apple Hot Dogs. I really enjoyed it. I preferred it over telesales because it was front-facing. I like to engage with people — I’m very approachable, friendly and always have a smile on my face. So it made sense to be outside rather than stuck in an office. And I love cooking — making other people happy when they’re eating your food gave me a real buzz.
The hot dog stand was really well established and I was thrown in at the deep end. After a while working there, it gave me the confidence to start my own business.
In 2019 I started Caribbean Kitchen, a pop-up food truck. We do Caribbean soul food, but we try to put a spin on things. Our menu can sometimes include ribs and lobster, plus we do a seafood grill. It can include traditional dishes like jerk chicken, but we add things like fried chicken and waffles with Canadian maple syrup, we do plantain mac and cheese — we try to innovate.
We had our food truck in places like Spitalfields Market, the Goodwood festivals, Greenwich Market, Shoreditch High Street, ExCeL London and Imperial Wharf in Chelsea.
We were doing well — then, in 2020, the pandemic hit. Our agent, who would find us sites, went into administration. The whole street food industry literally died overnight. I had to think on my feet and pivot. We went on the delivery platforms: Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats. I hired a ghost kitchen and was still able to operate. But for the past year, we’ve taken a break from that. We’ve only being doing private catering for offices and small events.
The reason I took a break was I focused on trying to secure a property and find other bits of work so I could bolster my income. I even took on some part-time building work.
• I bought my first house at the age of 20
I had always known about the Right to Buy scheme and thought I’d be able to buy my council flat, but I wasn’t in a great rush. But then there was a lot of talk around the legislation around Right to Buy changing. I thought, I need to try and secure something as an asset for the future.
Property is a no-brainer. Just paying rent for years on end can be a waste of money. I wanted to have something to show for it.
To save up, I made a lot of sacrifices. I sold the food truck, which was upsetting, but it wasn’t useful in the pandemic. I gave up my gym and Netflix subscriptions. I was part of a go-karting team and I gave that up. Instead of going out to nightclubs on the weekend I joined a chess club.
In 2022, the first time I applied for a mortgage, it was difficult, because I am self-employed and income can be sporadic. When you’re doing street food, income only comes in on the days you’re trading. The first mortgage broker took more than nine months to even find me a lender, but that one fell through because I was self-employed. The second time I applied in 2023, the lender kept saying they weren’t sure how to classify me as a self-employed chef and they wanted me to improve my credit score.
So I started using credit-building companies like Bits and Loqbox — you pay a small deposit to them every month — and that boosted my credit score by 200 points.
In 2024 I applied again. I got a broker from a company called Fluent Money. They put me in touch with a specialist lender, Together, which offers mortgages to people who are self-employed and entrepreneurial, who don’t have a standard income that comes in on a set date. They seemed really flexible.
I paid £103,500 for the flat. I completed on January 20 and put down a deposit of £25,000. My monthly outgoings come to £800 — just shy of double what I paid as a council tenant. But I feel ten times better about it because it’s an investment rather than paying somebody else’s mortgage.
It’s a two-bedroom ground-floor flat, built in the 1960s. It’s poorly insulated. There’s a communal garden. There’s nothing really to write home about, but I feel grateful and lucky. For a long time I felt like the odds were stacked against me buying, especially with the Right to Buy conditions changing. So it was one of the happiest days that I’ve had in a long, long time when I completed. I felt a sense of accomplishment. I feel more responsible. To know your home is your castle, and it’s yours to a degree, gives you a sense of pride. Mostly I feel gratitude.
It’s helped in my career too — I’ve come out all guns blazing. As well as the private catering, Caribbean Kitchen (@caribbeankitchenlondon) is going back outside — I’ve purchased a new food truck. We’re registering for events and we’ll be popping up in different locations — including Notting Hill Carnival and Wing Fest, the world’s largest chicken wing festival.
I feel more confident now that I have a lender that made the process easy. I don’t think this will be my last house purchase. The experience has left me wanting to do it again.
