Shopping for a new car has never been easier. 

There’s never been greater access to information on everything from make, model, fuel efficiency, past accidents and more to help you make the right decision.

Yet, consumers continue to make the same buying mistakes. 

Are you guilty of these? 

Fees for using out-of-network ATMs rose 5% over the past year and are up 23% over the past five years, according to Bankrate.com’s 17th annual checking survey. The average cost to consumers going outside their network is now $4.35 per transaction, a new high, and the eighth consecutive record-breaking year.

There are now 100 million credit union members across the U.S., the Credit Union National Association announced Tuesday. Combined, credit unions have $1.1 trillion in assets. And credit unions are attracting millennials at a rapid pace, which is good news for the future.

But even if they are no longer a tiny corner of the banking universe, credit unions remain small when compared to commercial banks, which hold $14.8 trillion in assets. Despite their rapid growth, credit unions still represent only 7.4 percent of banking assets. To put things in perspective, JP Morgan Chase (JPM) and Bank of America (BAC) have combined assets of $4.5 trillion: two banks have four times the assets of all the nation's credit unions combined.

Credit Unions are not-for-profit financial service cooperatives, owned and controlled by their members, and operating in a democratic way. What difference does that make? Co-ops are businesses, in many ways like any other business. But a cooperative operates solely for the members' benefit. All co-op businesses run in accordance with seven basic principles, many of which have been part of the co-op philosophy from their beginnings more than 150 years ago.

1. Open a voluntary membership