log shipping to 2 different servers

I have a solution where I have 3 servers to setup in a log shipping environment. The primary and first failover are located at the same location. The 3rd failover is across a slow LAN link. Haven't done it, but inside the wizard can you designate more than 1 server. Also, I have seen back and forth arguments over where the log shipping monitor should reside. With the budget I can't afford a box to just sit there and run the log shipping. Would i be better off putting the log shipping monitor on the standby server that is located at the facility? We have one client where I have the log shipping running on the primary, and the performance impact is non-exsistent.

You can have more than one secondary server (standby server) in a log shipping. During the setup you can add server in the wizard or later (modify the log shipping database maintenance plan).

You are better of setting up log shipping monitor on the secondary server. The performance impact depends on the frequency of backup/restore.

Doing it every five minutes

That's not bad. After each successful backup, copy and restore log shipping writes to a table in log shipping monitor.